THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


ADDRESSED    /'< ' 


s   of  Culture 


PROF.    FRAXZ   DEL1TZSCH. 


Translated  from  the  (.jt 

!>y  the 
e  v.     IV  ILL  I A  M    C.     I)  A  L  A  A'  D. 


Alfred  Centre,  N.  Y.: 

The  American  Subbath  Tract  Society. 

1890, 


ADDRESSED  TO 


s   of  Culture 


BY 


PROF.   FRANZ  DELITZSCH. 


Translated  from  the  German 

by  the 
Rev.     WILLIAM    C.    D  A  L  A  N  D. 


Alfred  Centre,  N.  Y.: 

The  American  Sabbath  Tract  Society. 

1690. 


ENTER F.D  ACCORDING  TO  ACT  07  CONGRESS, 

IN  THE  YEAR  1890,  BY 
.THE  AMERICAN  SABBATH  TRACT  SOCIETY, 

TN  THE  OFFICE  OF  THE 
LIBRARIAN  OF  CONGRESS,  AT  WASHINGTON. 


' 


PREFACE. 

No  apology  is  necessary  for  presenting:  to  the  pub- 
lic an  English  translation  of  this  most  excellent  of  tracts- 
Already  but  about  two  years  before  the  world  in  the  Ger- 
man language,  it  has  won  the  respectful  attention  of  both 
Jewish  and  Christian  thinkers  everywhere,  and  has  proven 
itself  to  be  the  best  text-book  for  Jewish  catechumens. 
This  translation  appeared  in  volume  II.  of  The  Peculiar  Peo- 
ple, and  it  is  now  issued  as  a  separate  pamphlet  in  the  hope 
that  thereby  in  this  newer  garb  it  may  continue  its  gracious 
work  among  the  English  speaking  Jews. 

« 

That  God,  who  has  so  lately  removed  from  us  the  la- 
mented author,  may  vouchsafe  His  blessing  upon  Israel 
and  raise  up  for  His  chosen  people  many  friends,  to  whom 
the  life  of  Franz  Delitzsch  may  be  an  inspiration  to  noble 
endeavor  in  this  cause,  is  the  earnest  prayer  of 

THE  TRANSLATOR. 


1965955 


ADDRESSED  TO  HEBREWS  OF  CULTURE. 


Beloved  Hebreiv  Readers, — If,  as  I  hope,  you  know  me  as 
a  Christian  scholar  who  is  a  friend  of  Israel,  you  will 
understand  that  in  inviting  you  to  a  religious  meditation, 
I  am  anxious  to  put  myself  in  your  place  and  realize  your 
mode  of  thinking.  I  shall  take  nothing  for  granted  except 
that  upon  which  we  are  both  agreed,  and  offer  you  only 
cogent  reasons  capable  of  producing  irresistible  conviction. 

There  is  a  God.  Such  is  your  belief  as  well  as  mine. 
We  are  bound  to  believe  it.  In  vain  do  atheists  and 
epicureans  strive  to  escape  from  it.  It  is  of  the  essential 
nature  of  our  spirit  to  trace  every  effect  to  some  cause,  and 
as  we  climb  this  ladder  of  conclusions  higher  and  higher, 
we  arrive  at  last  at  a  being  who  is  the  cause  of  all  causes, 
the  last  cause  of  the  universe,  a  being  independent  of 
everything,  and  on  whom  everything  is  dependent,  a  being 
to  whom  everything  which  exists  owes  its  origin.  The  uni- 
verse without  God  is  but  a  blind  monster.  History  with- 
out God  is  nothing  but  confusion,  without  rhyme  or  rea- 
son. And  there  is  but  one  God.  Two  or  three  highest 
beings  side  by  side  are  impossible;  one  only  can  be  the 
highest.  But  this  one  God,  on  whom  man  depends  in  every 
breath,  and  whose  glory  the  heavens  declare,  wants  to  be 
acknowledged  and  praised  to  the  exclusion  of  all  else. 
Among  all  the  truths  to  which  our  reason  must  yield, 
there  is  none  higher  than  this,  that  God  is  one;  and  among 
all  the  duties  incumbent  upon  creatures  endowed  with 
reason,  there  is  none  higher  than  this,  that  they  give  glory 
to  the  One  God  only. 

I  admit  to  you,  my  dear  Jewish  readers,  frankly,  that 
the  Christian  religion  would  be  a  false  religion  if  it  gave 
up  or  tampered  with  the  belief  that  God  is  one.  In  that 


0  SOLEMN  QUESTIONS. 

case,  the  Jewish  religion  would  have  comparatively  a 
stronger  claim  than  the  Christian  religion  to  ascribe  to 
tself  the  destiny  of  becoming  the  universal  religion.  For 
our  chief  weapon  against  heathenism  is  the  declaration 
that  the  gods  of  the  heathen  are  but  deified  creatures,  and 
that  the  true,  living  God  is  One,  even  the  Creator  of  heaven 
and  earth.  Neither  am  I  inclined  to  withhold  from  you 
the  admission  that  Christian  worship,  sometimes,  by  its 
ceremonies  and  prayers  seems. to  contradict  the  confession 
of  faith  in  one  God. 

The  Reformation  has  done  away  with  some  of  the 
abuses  and  errors  which  bear  the  stamp  of  heathenism, 
because  they  curtail  the  glory  of  the  one  God.  The  Refor- 
mation has  laid  down  the  principle,  that  the  doctrine  and 
practice  of  the  church  is  ever  liable  to  the  test  of  the  words 
of  Scripture.  The  creeds  of  the  Reformers,  designate  the 
holy  books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  as  "  the  pure 
sources  of  Israel,"  to  which  the  church  must  ever  have  re- 
course to  formulate  by  them  its  doctrine  and  to  regulate  by 
them  its  life.  The  Israel  of  the  Old  Testament,  too,  has  to 
judge  of  the  merits  of  the  New  Testament  religion  by  the 
documents  of  that  religion,  and  the  church  has  not  the  right  to 
force  upon  Israel  the  Christian  religion  in  this  or  that  historical 
garb. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Israelite  who  wishes  to  have  a 
true  conception  of  the  Christian  faith,  is  bound  not  to  be 
guided  by  accidental  impressions  or  second-hand  hear-say, 
but  to  search  for  what  Jesus  and  his  apostles  affirm.  He 
will  then  find  that  the  fundamental  principle  of  the  unity 
of  God,  which  proves  the  incomparable  superiority  of  the 
religion  of  Israel  over  all  religions  of  antiquity,  is,  in  the 
New  Testament,  too,  acknowledged  as  the  supreme  truth. 
When  one  of  the  scribes,  as  related  in  Mark  12:  2§,  29, 
asked  Jesus,  "  Which  is  the  first  commandment  of  all?" 
He  answered: "  The  first  of  all  the  commandments  is:  '•  Hear, 
O  Israel,  the  Lord  our  God  is  one  Lord."  And  in  Luke  18: 
18,  19  we  read  :  "A  certain  ruler  asked  him,  saying  :  Good 
Master,  What  shall  I  do  to  inherit  eternal  life?"  to  which 
the  answer  of  Jesus  was  :  *•  Why  callest  thou  me  good? 


SOLEMN  QUESTIONS.  7 

None  is  good  save  one,  that  is,  God."  And  in  the  prayer  he 
offers  to  his  Father  before  his  crucifixion,  he  says,  (John 
17:  3),  "And  this  is  life  eternal,  that  they  might  know  thee 
the  only  true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  thou  hast  sent." 
And  like  an  echo  of  this  word  of  Jesus  is  what  Paul  writes 
in  i  Cor.  8:  6,  "To  us  there  is  but  one  God,  the  Father,  of 
whom  are  all  things,  and  we  in  him,  and  one  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  by  whom  are  all  things,  and  we  by  him."  Such 
declarations  concerning  the  only  one  God  run  through  the 
whole  New  Testament.  "  But,"  it  will  be  objected,  "you 
believe  in  God  as  triune."  Certainly,  but  if  the  "trinity" 
excluded  the  "unity,"  we  would  give  up  the  trinity  and 
stand  by  the  unity. 

We  believe  in  God,  and  in  God's  Son,  and  in  God's  Holy 
Spirit,  just  as  you  believe  in  God,  and  in  his  "  Shechinah  " 
and  in  his  Holy  Spirit.  The  essence  of  God  is  one,  but 
threefold  is  the  revelation  of  that  essence.  Even  in  the 
sacred  history  of  the  Old  Testament  he  gives  a  threefold 
revelation  of  himself.  But,  for  the  present,  we  will  not 
further  touch  upon  that. 

For  our  further  discussion  I  shall  take  nothing  for 
granted  except  that  we  are  agreed  on  the  existence  of  God. 
and  on  the  unity  of  God. 


IF  God  is  the  creator  of  the  world,  He  is  also  its  pre- 
server and  governor.  And  if  man  is  free  to  give  to  his 
actions  this  or  that  direction,  he  is  also  morally  responsi- 
ble. Both  those  things  are  self-evident.  And  since  there 
are  free  beings  in  the  world,  the  history  of  the  world  can- 
not follow  the  same  laws  as  govern  the  material  universe. 
There  is  a  law  in  the  natural  world,  and  there  is  a  moral 
order  in  history  in  accordance  with  a  higher  law.  The 
attitude  of  men  towards  God  is  determining  the  attitude 
of  God  towards  men.  And  because  men,  in  their  estrange- 
ment from  God  and  in  the  misery  of  sin,  cannot  save  them- 
selves, God,  who  is  not  only  just  but,  before  all  things,  mer- 
ciful and  gracious,  interposes  and  provides  means  of  salva- 
tion for  man,  and  substitutes  mercy  for  justice  in  the  case 
of  all  who  do  not  reject  His  proffered  help. 


S  SOLEMN  QUESTIONS. 

Such  a  means  of  salvation  was  the  call  of  Abraham 
away  from  his  idolatrous  surroundings  to  make  him 
prophet  of  the  one  living  God  for  his  house  and  all  the 
world.  "Get  thee  out  of  thy  country  and  from  thy  kin- 
dred, and  from  thy  father's  house,  unto  a  land  that  I  will 
show  thee.  And  I  will  make  of  thee  a  great  nation,  and  I 
will  bless  thee,  and  make  thy  name  great,  and  thou  shalt 
baa  blessing."  Gen.  12:  1,2.  In  these  divine  words  Abra- 
ham is  called  to  become  a  channel  of  blessing,  a  fountain 
from  which  far-reaching  streams  of  blessings  are  to  flow. 
Whether  people  participate  in  the  blessing  conveyed 
through  Abraham  or  not  depends  upon  the  attitude  they 
assume  towards  him,  as  stated  in  the  third  verse  of  the 
chapter  cited  above,  "And  I  will  bless  them  that  bless  thee, 
and  curse  him  that  curseth  thee:  and  in  thee  shall  all  fami- 
lies of  the  earth  be  blessed."  Such  was  God's  will,  design, 
and  promise  which  came  through  Abraham,  upon  Isaac, 
Jacob  and  the  people  descended  from  them. 

The  patriarchs  were  not  without  sinful  weaknesses,  and 
the  people  of  Israel  had  a  natural  inclination  towards  hea- 
thenism, as  is  evident  by  their  repeated  yielding  to  the  fasi- 
nation  of  the  idolatrous  worship  of  their  neighbors.  But 
in  so  far  as  Israel  and  their  ancestors  proved  themselves 
true  servants  and  preachers  of  the  one  living  God,  and  of 
His  counsel  and  will,  in  so  far  has  God,  who  shapes  history 
according  to  his  plan  of  salvation,  demanded  that  His 
human  instruments  be  obediently  acknowledged  by  those 
who  came  under  their  influence  as  having  a  divine  mission. 

The  patriarchal  form  of  revealed  religion  was  followed 
by  the  Law  of  Moses,  and  this  latter  by  the  Messianic  reve- 
lation. When  Jesus  was  baptized  by  John  in  Jordan,  and 
again  when  He  was  transfigured  upon  the  mountain, 
"there  came  a  voice  out  of  the  cloud  saying:  This  is  my 
beloved  Son,  hear  him."  Luke  9:  35.  This  divine  witness 
declares  him  to  be  the  Prophet  like  unto  Moses,  concerning 
whom  we  read  the  solemn  words  of  warning  exhortation": 
"And  it  shall  come  to  pass  that'whosoever  will  not  hearken 
unto  my  words  which  he  shall  speak  in  my  name.  I  will  re- 
quire it  of  him."  Deut.  18:  19.  It  declares  Him  to  be  the 


SOLEMN  QUESTIONS.  9 

Servant  of  Jehovah  of  whom  God,  in  the  word  of  prophecy, 
says,  "  Behold  my  servant,  whom  I  uphold,  mine  elect  in 
whom  my  soul  delighteth;  I  have  put  my  spirit  upon  him; 
he  shall  bring-  forth  judgment  to  the  Gentiles  "  (Isaiah  42 : 
i);  /.  <?.,  it  is  He  whom  God  has  appointed  that  through  Him 
the  religion  of  Israel  shall  become  the  religion  of  the  world. 
He  is  the  "  Son  "  of  whom  it  is  said  in  the  second  Psalm: 
"  Kiss  the  Son  lest  He  -(the  Lord  God)  be  angry,  and  ye 
perish  from  the  way."  For  as  we  read  in  John  3:  35,  36^ 
"  The  Father  loveth  the  Son,  and  hath  given  all  things  into 
his  hand.  He  that  believeth  on  the  Son  hath  everlasting 
life;  and  he  that  believeth  not  the  Son,  shall  not  see  life, 
but  the  wrath  of  God  abideth  on  him."  And  He  himself 
in  His  sermon  on  the  Mount  demands  faith,  living  faith, 
confession  of  the  heart  and  life,  for  on  that  day  He  will  say 
to  all  who  only  outwardly  subject  themselves  to  Him,  "  I 
never  knew  you;  depart  from  me,  ye  that  work  iniquity." 
Matt.  7:  23. 

These  are  mighty  words,  which  even  a  Jewish  hearer 
ought  not  to  leave  unheeded.  May  not  this  Jesus  be,  after 
all,  the  man  whom  God  has  appointed  as  the  instrument 
to  complete  the  channel  of  salvation  begun  by  Abraham  and 
continued  by  Moses?  Of  the  success  which  Abraham's  proc- 
lamation of  the  one  true  God  had  beyond  the  limits  of 
his  own  household,  we  do  not  read  anything;  on  the  con- 
trary, in  Egypt  and  Philistia  he  himself  made  all  success 
impossible  by  his  unfaithful  conduct.  Neither  have  Moses 
and  the  people  of  Israel  done  anything  to  convert  the 
heathen  world  from  its  dead  idols  to  the  living  God.  Even 
among  the  prophets  there  is  .but  one,  namely,  Jonah,  who 
was  sent  to  the  great  Empire-city  to  preach  repentance 
there,  and  he  did  it  only  reluctantly,  yielding  to  a  divine 
compulsion.  But  apostolic  preaching  emanating  from 
Jesus  has  destroyed  the  heathenism  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
so  that  Julian  the  Apostate  tried  in  vain  to  resuscitate  it. 
True,  the  mission  of  the  Christian  religion  in  Inter  centu- 
ries has  not  come  up  in  its  effect  to  the  first  centuries,  in 
which  the  first  impulse  given  by  Jesus  himself  was  more 
strongly  felt.  True,  the  Christian  religion  has,  by  admit- 


10  SOLEMN  QUESTIONS. 

ting  all  kinds  of  strange  errors,  weakened  its  own  original 
energy.  Yet  even  the  later  centuries  have  had  successes 
in  the  heathen  world  to  which  nothing  that  Judaism  has 
done  can  be  compared.  And  whenever  the  Christian  re- 
ligion has  found  entrance  it  has  permeated  the  intellectual, 
social  and  political  life  with  power  and  progress,  and  has 
created  a  new  era  in  the  world's  history. 

But  in  the  Talmud  this  Jesus  is  reviled  as  a  bastard,1 
the  son  of  criminal  intercourse  between  a  certain  Pandera 
with  the  virgin  Mary,  and  we  are  told  that  He  was  with 
Joshua  Ben  Perachia  (who,  however,  lived  a  century  before 
Jesus)  in  Egypt,  and  that  He  there  so  misconducted  Him- 
self that  He  was  solemnly  excommunicated.  His  miracles 
are  explained  as  a  consequence  ot  his  having  hidden,  in  an 
incision  in  his  flesh,  certain  formulas  of  witchcraft  obtained 
in  Egypt.  Instead  of  the  twelve  apostles  five  disciples  are 
enumerated,  and  to  each  one  a  name  is  given  indicating 
his  deserving  to  be  cut  off.  Jesus  Himself,  we  are  told,  was 
hung  at  Lydda  as  a  seducer  of  the  people,  and  is  deservedly 
suffering  greater  punishment  than  Balaam,  seeing  that  He 
— it  is  terrible  to  have  to  write  it— is  being  sodden  in  a  lake 

of .     Do  not  reply  that  you  have  never  read 

anything  like  it  in  the  Talmud.  The  censor  of  former  days 
has  struck  out  such  passages.  But  there  are  books  in  which 
those  condemned  passages  "  like  jewels  and  pearls  "  are 
collected  and  reserved  from  oblivion. 

Must  there  not  be  something  rotten  in  the  Talmudical 
Judaism  which  harbors  such  a  hatred  against  Jesus?  May 
it  not  be  true  concerning  Jesus  as  concerning  Abraham, 
"  I  will  bless  them  that  bless  thee,  and  curse  him  that 
curseth  thee?  "  Those  revilings  read  like  the  insane  rav- 
ings of  those  who  had  drunk  of  the  cup  of  the  divine 
wrath. 

Neither,  I  pray  you,  reply  that  this  contempt  for  the 
person  of  Jesus  is  owing  to  His  having  called  Himself  the 
Son  of  God  and  to  His  having  assumed  a  relationship  to- 
wards God  which  is  incompatible  with  the  unity  of  God. 

nnnn  nsim  pnj  (2   -MSB  (i 


SOLEMN  QUESTIONS.  11 

For  at  all  events,  there  remains  His  moral  purity,  His 
spiritual  grandeur,  His  world-renewing  power,  before 
which  the  greatest  modern  thinkers  bow  down,  their  free- 
thinking  propensities  notwithstanding.  "  I  consider  the 
Gospels" — Goethe  said  on  the  nth  of  March,  1832 — ''thor- 
oughly genuine,  for  there  is  active  in  them  a  reflex  of 
nobility  which  emanated  from  the  power  of  Jesus,  and  is  of 
as  divine  a  nature  as  has  ever  been  experienced  on  earth. 
If  I  am  asked  whether  my  nature  allows  me  to  adore  Him 
with  reverence,  I  answer:  Most  certainly!  I  bow  before  Him 
as  the  highest  revelation  of  the  loftiest  principle  of 
morality."  And  Carlyle — certainly  not  a  Christian  in  the 
strict  ecclesiastical  sense — says  somewhere:  "If  you  ask 
me  up  to  what  height  has  humanity  reached  in  religion? 
I  say,  look  upon  our  Divine  symbol,  Jesus  of  Nazareth' 
and  His  life  and  His  biography.  Higher  than  that  human 
mind  has  never  risen." 

There  are  in  Israel,  too,  noble  individuals  who  speak 
approximately  in  the  same  strain.  In  the  writings  of 
Leopold  Kompert  and  Karl  Emil  Franzos  we  come  across 
beautiful  acknowledgements  of  the  pure  and  holy  humanity 
of  Jesus,  though  they  do  not  draw  the  conclusion  that  the 
Christian  religion  is  a  higher  religious  platform  than  Juda- 
ism. We  are  glad  even  of  this  approach  to  right  apprecia- 
tion. He  who  does  not  curse  him  is  close  to  blessing  Him 
and  to  being  blessed  by  the  God  whose  "  Shechinah  "  He  is. 


THE  time  is  past,  or  ought  to  be  past,  when  hatred  of 
the  Jews  looked  upon  every  one  of  the  Jewish  nation  as 
having  had  part  in  the  putting  to  death  of  Jesus,  and 
thought  to  do  service  to  God,  if  it  inflicted  upon  them  con- 
dign punishment  for  that  awful  deed.  It  has  been  forgot- 
ten that  at  the  time  of  the  crucifixion  there  were  Jewish 
communities  in  all  three  continents  who  knew  nothing  of 
the  activity  of  Jesus  in  Palestine,  nor  of  his  death.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  is  as  vain  to  try  to  deny  or  to  mini- 
mize the  guilt  of  the  Jews  in  reference  to  the  crucifixion. 
Thus,  Philippson,  in  his  pamphlet  "  Have  the  Jews  crucified 
Jesus  ?"  tries  to  whitewash  the  Jews  in  the  same  way  in 


12  SOLEMN    QUESTIONS. 

which  the  tribunals  of  the  inquisition  ascribed  the  murder 
of  the  heretics  they  had  condemned  to  death  to  the  action 
of  the  civil  power.  And  Graetz,  after  having  described,  as 
he  thinks  with  the  impartiality  of  an -historian,  the  person 
and  work  of  Jesus,  says  when  coming  to  the  crucifixion: 
"  Such  was  the  end  of  the  man  who  had  worked  for  the 
moral  improvement  of  his  people  and  had  perhaps  become 
the  victim  of  a  misunderstanding-."  Perhaps!  That  is  to 
say,  the  saying  of  Jesus  in  which  He  called  Himself  the  Son 
of  God  was  perhaps  understood  in  a  sense  different  from 
what  was  involved.  But  we  are  of  the  opinion  that  the 
proceedings  at  the  condemnation  of  Jesus  were  indeed  up- 
roarious, that  the  laws  were  not  minutely  observed,  and 
that  the  appeal  to  Pilate:  "  If  thou  let  this  man  go,  thou  art 
not  Caesar's  friend;  whosoever  maketh  himself  a  king 
speaketh  against  Csesar"  (John  19:  12)  was  a  piece  of  deceit 
practiced  upon  the.cowardice  of  the  procurator.  But  apart 
from  this,  we  admit  that  this  Jesus,  who  in  His  sermon 
on  the  Mount  went  so  far  as  to  criticise  even  the  Decalogue 
and  to  oppose  to  it  His  own  words,  saying:  "  But  I  say  unto 
you,"  who  called  Himself  not  only  the  Son  of  God  but  Lord 
of  the  Sabbath,  and  declared  such  rabbinical  ordinances 
as  washing  of  hands  before  meals  as  worthless, — we  admit 
I  say,  that  this  Jesus  could  not  but  appear,  from  this  point 
of  view  of  Pharisaic  legality,  as  guilty  of  death;  for  trans- 
gression of  legal  ordinances  designed  to  protect  the  Law 
from  being  broken  is,  according  to'  traditional  maxims  a 
capital  offense  (Erubin  21  b),  and  such  a  teacher  was  to  be 
executed  at  the  time  of  the  feast.  (Sanhedrin  n,  4).  But 
still  the  killing  of  Jesus  was,  when  looked  at  from  a  higher 
point  of  view,  judicial  murder.  The  justice  which  carried 
out  the  letter  of  the  law  was  a  crying  injustice.  For  the 
absolutely  perfect  purity  of  the  person  of  Jesus,  the  over 
whelming  spiritual  power  of  His  declarations,  and  the 
miracles  of  mercy  in  which  God  owned  and  acknowledged 
Him,  ought  to  have  lifted  His  opponents  above  the  platform 
of  rigorous  legality.  This  legality,  in  nailing  the  Holy  One 
of  God  to  the  cross,  has  pronounced  judgment  against  it- 
self. Just  as  Paul,  who,  before  his  conversion,  consenting 


SOLEMN  QUESTIONS.  13 

to  the  stoning  of  Stephen,  proceeded  against  the  disciples 
of  our  Lord  with  threatenings  and  slaughter,  learned  by 
his  own  doings  of  what  criminal  cruelty  Pharisaic  fanati- 
cism is  capable;  and  just  as  he  says  in  Gal.  2:  19,  "  I  through 
the  law  am  dead  to  the  law  "  —  just  so  the  religion  of  the 
law,  in  delivering  up  to  death  on  the  cross  the  Founder  of 
the  New  Covenant  promised  by  the  prophet,  has  borne  tes- 
timony to  its  own  miserable  erroneous  narrowness  and 
sealed  its  own  downfall. 

We  are  far  from  considering  every  individual  Israelite 
of  later  times  living  out  of  Palestine  as  responsible  for  the 
legal  proceedings  on  that  decisive  occasion.  But,  consid- 
ering that  if  any  people,  through  common  origin,  common 
religion,  ceremonial  law  and  history  is  a  compact  unity,  it 
is  the  Jewish  people,  according  to  the  proverb:  "All  are  re- 
sponsible for  one  another,"1  we  cannot  escape  from  the 
conclusion  that  the  delivering  up  of  Jesus  to  the  Romans 
as  one  guilty  of  a  capital  offense  is  a  national  guilt  resting 
upon  the  Jewish  people;  and  when  we  read  in  the  prophet 
that  Israel  in  the  latter  days  will  smite  his  breast  in 
repentance,  and  will  lament  as  a  fearful  crime  the  killing 
of  a  servant  of  the  Lord  who  had  been  shamefully  mis- 
judged, we  cannot  escape  the  question  of  our  conscience 
whether,  after  all,  Jesus  was  not  the  victim  of  this  unfor- 
tunate blindness. 

"  I  will  pour  upon  the  house  of  David  "  —  we  read  in 
the  Book  of  Zechariah,  12:  10  —  13:  i  —  "and  upon  the  inhab- 
itants of  Jerusalem,  the  spirit  of  grace  and  of  supplications, 
and  they  shall  look  upon  me  whom  they  have  pierced,  and 
they  shall  mourn  for  him,  as  one  mourneth  for  his  only 
son,  and  shall  be  in  bitterness  for  him,  as  one  that  is  in 
bitterness  for  his  first-born.  In  that  day  shall  there  be  a 
great  mourning  in  Jerusalem,  as  the  mourning  of  Had- 
adrimmon  in  the  valley  of  Megiddon.  And  the  land  shall 
rnourn,  every  family  apart;  the  family  of  the  house  of 
David  apart,  and  their  'wives  apart;  the  family  of  the 
house  of  Nathan  apart,  and  their  wives  apart; 


.173 


14  SOLEMN  QUESTIONS. 

the  family  of  the  house  of  Levi  apart,  and  their 
wives  apart;  the  family  of  Shimei  apart,  and  their  wives 
apart.  All  the  families  that  remain,  ever)-  family  apart, 
and  their  wives  apart.  In  that  day  there  shall  be  a  fount- 
ain opened  to  the  house  of  David,  and  to  the  inhabitants 
of  Jerusalem  for  sin  and  for  uncleanness."  It  is  anational 
mourning  as  was  once  that  for  the  beloved  king  Josiah 
who  had  been  mortally  wounded  on  the  battle  field  of  Me- 
giddon.  The  royal  house  in  its  principal  branch,  as  well 
as  in  its  lateral  branches  (David,  Nathan);  the  priestly 
family,  in  its  principal  branches  and  its  lateral 
branches,  (Levi,  Shimei) — all  will  mourn,  and  not 
only  they  but  all  families  existing  at  that  future 
time  of  Israel's  great  repentance.  The  special  em- 
phasis laid  upon  the  mourning  of  the  women  shows 
that  the  prophet  does  not  speak  of  a  mere  national  political 
concern,  but  that  he  describes  a  matter  affecting  man's 
relationship  to  God  wherein  duties  and  rights  belong  to 
men  and  women  alike.  But  who  is  this  Pierced  One  whose 
piercing  the  Lord  God  considers  as  a  crime  committed 
against  Himself  ? 

"  Whom  they  have  pierced  " — it  might  be  thought  that 
not  His  own  people,  but  the  heathen  are  described  as  those 
who  pierced  Him.  But  in  the  book  of  the  Prophet  Isaiah 
we  learn  that  the  innocent  Servant  of  the  Lord  was  per- 
secuted by  His  own  people  for  whom  He  sacrificed  Himself. 
"  I  gave  my  back  to  the  smiters,  and  my  cheeks  to  them 
that  plucked  off  the  hair;  I  hid  not  my  face  from  shame 
and  spitting."  Isa.  50:  6. 

He  came  unto  His  own,  and  His  own  received  Him  not- 
And  yet  the  time  is  to  come  in  which  they  would  rec- 
ognize as  their  Saviour  Him  whom  they  had  misjudged, 
hated  with  a  deadly  hatred,  and  persecuted.  "  Surely,  he 
hath  borne  our  griefs,  and  carried  our  sorrows:  yet  we  did 
esteem  him  stricken,  smitten  of  God,  and  afflicted.  But 
he  was  wounded  for  our- transgressions,  he  was  bruised  for 
our  iniquities:  the  chastisement  of  our  peace  was  upon 
him;  and  with  his  stripes  we  are  healed."  Isa.  53  :  4,  5. 

Who  is  this  pierced    one?      Surely   not    Israel!      For 


SOLEMN  QUESTIONS.  I  5 

Israel,  as  a  nation,  confesses  here  that  he  had  deemed  Him 
smitten  of  God  who  for  Israel's  sake  had  taken  upon  Him- 
self suffering  unto  death,  just  as  Job  had  been  deemed  by 
his  three  friends  to  be  an  exceptionally  great  sinner  be- 
cause of  his  abnormally  great  trials.  If  the  Servant  of  the 
Lord  who  has  been  misjiidged  by  His  people  is  the  per- 
sonification of  a  multitude,  He  can  personify  only  those 
who  have  labored  for  the  salvation  of  their  people  and 
sacrificed  their  lives  to  that  labor.  Such  a  servant  of  the 
Lord  was  Jeremiah,  who,  according  to  trustworthy  reports, 
suffered  martyrdom  in  Egypt  at  the  hands  of  its  people. 
But  this  Jeremiah,  or  any  other  like  him,  was  only  a  type 
of  that  incomparably  great  Sufferer,  who  was  consumed  by 
His  zeal  for  the  house  of  God,  and  who  interceded  for  His 
benighted  people  when  he  gave  up  the  ghost  on  the  cross. 
When  Pilate  wanted  to  release  Him,  but  was  hindered  by 
force,  the  fanatical  multitude  took  all  the  responsibility 
upon  itself,  crying  :  "  His  blood  be  on  us  and  on  our 
children."  Matt.  27  :  25.  Is  it,  after  all,  this  blood-guilti- 
ness which  will  be  felt  by  the  Jewish  people  hereafter  as 
a  burden  upon  heart  and  conscience  too  heavy  to  bear — is 
that,  after  all,  the  national  sin  for  which,  when  it  once 
comes  to  the  faith,  it  will  ask  and  receive  forgiveness? 

One  of  the  last  words  of  Jesus  addressed  to  His  people 
as  He  was  concluding  His  public  activity  was:  "O  Jeru- 
salem, Jerusalem,  thou  that  killest  the  prophets,  and 
stonest  them  which  are  sent  unto  thee,  how  often  would  I 
have  gathered  thy  children  together,  even  as  ahengather- 
eth  her  chickens  under  her  wings,  and  ye  would  not!.  Be- 
hold, your  house  is  left  unto  you  desolate.  For  I  say  unto 
you,  Ye  shall  not  see  me  henceforth,  till  ye  shall  say. 
Blessed  is  he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord."  Matt. 
23  :  37-39.  Brethren  of  the  house  of  Israel,  you  know  the 
view  of  your  ancestors  :  "The  curse  of  a  wise  man,  even 
though  unjustly  pronounced,  is  effectual."1  (Berachoth 
56  a.)  This  is  an  extravagant  idea,  for  an  unjustifiable 
curse,  though  pronounced  by  the  greatest  scholar,  is  -vain 


XT!  Ljm  i'SS  DDD  np  (1 


16  SOLEMN  QUHbl  IONS. 

breath.  But  that  a  threat  out  of  the  mouth  of  a  man  liv- 
ing in  God  and  speaking"  out  of  communion  with  God  is 
not  without  effect  has  been  confirmed  by  experience.  And 
seeing  that  that  threat  of  Jesus  was  followed,  four  decades 
after,  by  the  burning  of  the  Temple  and  dissolution  of  the 
Jewish  commonwealth,  does  there  not  seem  to  be  a  con- 
nection between  the  threat  and  the  occurrence  of  the 
threatened  disaster? 

In  the  "  Sayings  of  the  Fathers"  {Aboth.  5,  9),  among 
the  chief  sins  causing  "  Galuth,"  /'.  e.,  expulsion  from  the 
native  country,  is  enumerated  the  "shedding  of  blood."1 
The  innocent  blood  with  which  king  Manasseh  filled  Jeru- 
salem, from  end  to  end,  filled  up  the  measure  of  sin  for 
which  the  exile  to  Babylon  was  the  punishment.  But  that 
exile  lasted  only,  in  round  numbers,  70  years,  whilst  now 
the  Jewish  people  has,  for  1800  years,  been  deprived  of  its 
country.  Yet  that  country  which  since  the  time  of  Ves- 
pasian and  Titus  has  been  under  foreign  dominion  has 
been  promised,  yea  sworn,  to  Israel  as  an  eternal  posses- 
sion. How  is  that  to  be  explained?  Only  two  reasons 
are  possible.  Either  that  promise  which  runs  through  all 
parts  of  the  Old  Testament,  belongs  to  the  region  of  myth- 
ical accounts,  or  the  conduct  of  Israel,  these  1800  years, 
has  made  it  impossible  for  God  to  re-instate  them  in  the 
promised  possession.  The  prophets  have  forseen  this  long 
expatriation.  When  those  who  have  been  dispersed  in  all 
directions  recognize  the  cause  and  repent,  they  shall,  ac- 
cording to  Deut.  30:  1-8,  have  restored  to  them  the  land  of 
their  inheritance. 

But  are  not  the  prayers  of  the  Synagogue — especially 
those  of  New  Year,  Day  of  Atonement  and  the  interven- 
ing days,'2)  full  of  deep  acknowledgement  of  sin  and  touch- 
ing appeals  to  the  mercy  of  God? 

Yes.  it  is  true;  but  the  duration  of  these  many  centuries 
of  exile  is  inexplicable  without  the  assumption  that  there 
rests  upon  this  poor  people,  in  spite  of  its  heart-rending 

•iron  rvs.v  (1 
.C'S-  :  :••:•    2 


SOLEMN  QUESTIONS.  17 

cries  to  God,  the  ban  of  unacknowledged   sin  which  hin. 
ders  God  from  relieving  its  misery. 


HE  who  accepts  the  Christian  religion  as  the  continua- 
tion and  consummation  of  Israel's  religion  will  find  this 
view  amply  affirmed  in  the  Law,  the  Prophets  and  the 
Hagiographa.  But  these  confirmations  are  no  proofs  for 
the  outsider;  and  in  putting  questions  to  the  conscience  of 
the  Jewish  reader,  I  pass  by  all  pleas  which  are  without 
cogency  for  him  who  has  not  yet  accepted  the  Christian 
faith.  I  will  base  my. arguments  upon  suppositions  which 
are  accepted  both  by  the  believing  Israelite  and  the  be^ 
lieving  Christian,  and  chiefly  upon  these  two  assumptions: 
firstly,  that  there  is  a  history  of  God's  revelation,  /'.  <?.,  of 
God's  free  acts  and  communications  by  which  he  has  inter- 
rupted the  natural  course  of  things;  and,  secondly,  that 
prophecy  is  an  effect  of  divine  revelation,  not  being  the 
result  of  natural  combination,  but  having  proceeded  from 
divine  illumination. 

If  there  is  no  history  of  divine  revelation,  Anti-semit-- 
ism  is  right  in  asserting  that  Israel's  consciousness  of  be- 
ing the  chosen  people  of  God,  destined  to  communicate  to 
the  world  God's  revelation,  is  nothing  but  the  vanity  of  a- 
conceited  national  pride.  And  if  there  is  no  prophecy 
resting  upon  the  inspiration  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  all  the 
facts  in  which  the  Christian  religion  recognizes  the  fulfill-- 
ment  of  Old  Testament  prophecies,  as,  for  instance,  that 
the  good  Shepherd  in  the  book  of  Zechariah  was  given  by" 
the  ungrateful  people  as  Jtiis  price,  thirty  pieces  of  silver, 
and  that  thirty  pieces  of  silver,  the  reward  of  betrayal  on 
the  part  of  Judas  Iscariot,  are  the  mere  play  of  chance. 
The  Israelite  who  adopts  such  a  position  rejects  the  Chris- 
tian religion  at  the  cost  of  depriving  his  own  religion  of 
its  divine  basis — he  is  a  "denier  of  the  first  cause,"1  un- 
dermining and  cutting  up  the  divine  root  of  the  Jewish 
and  Christian  religion  alike. 

But  supposing  that  we,  my  Jewish  reader  and  myself, 

.-,pj'3  ^SID  (1 


IS  SOLEMN   QUESTIONS. 

are  agreed  in  recognizing  the  hand  of  God  in  history  and 
prophecy,  I  shall  carefully  avoid  what  has  often  been  done, 
namely,  to  make  use  of  passages  in  the  Prophets,  the  ex- 
planation of  which  is  of  a  disputable  character.  I  shall  not 
adduce  Gen.  49:  10  as  proof  that  Shiloh  (the  Messiah,)  is 
to  come  at  a  time  when  Judah  shall  have  lost  the  regal  do- 
minion. I  consider  this  explanation  wrong,  and  the  fulfill- 
ment, supposing  the  explanation  could  be  admitted,  would 
not  be  correct,  for  Jesus  appeared  in  the  time  of  the  domin- 
ion of  the  Herodean  dynasty.  That  dynasty  was,  indeed, 
of  Edomitic  origin,  but,  according  to  religious  profession, 
it  was  Jewish.  According  to  Sofa,  41  a,  when  King  Agrip- 
pa  wept  in  reading  Deut.  17:15,  "One  from  among  thy 
brethren  shalt  thou  set  king  over  thee,"  the  people  tried  to 
comfort  him  by  shouting,  "  You  are  our  brother!"  '  and  in- 
deed he  was  their  brother,  the  Edomites  having  been,  two 
hundred  years  before,  by  circumcision,  incorporated  into 
the  Jewish  nation  when  the  Hasmonean  -king,  John  Hyr- 
canus,  conquered  them.  Still  less  is  it  possible  to  prove 
from  the  seventy  weeks  in  the  gth  chapter  of  the  book  of 
Daniel,  that  Jesus  is  the  Messiah,  because  after  He  had  been 
removed,  and  Jerusalem  afterward  destroyed,  seven  and 
sixty-two  weeks,  i.  e.,  sixty-nine  times  seven  years  had 
elapsed.  In  the  first  instance  "  Messiah  "2  may  be  the  le- 
gal title  of  the  high  priest,  who  was  violently  removed,  and 
secondly,  the  backward  calculation  of  four  hundred  and 
eighty-three  years  brings  us  to  no  event  of  real  import- 
ance which  might  serve  as  a  starting  point. 

Daniel's  seventy  weeks  are  an  enigma  which  awaits 
yet  its  solution,  because  it  has  been  found  that  Antiochus 
Epiphanes  was  not  yet  the  final  arch-enemy  of  the  people 
of  God,  and  after  his  removal  it  was  not  yet  the  final  redemp- 
tion which  was  brought  about,  but  only  a  prelude  to  it. 

Prophetic  foresight  of  the  distant  future  is  subject  to 
the  law  of  perspective.  The  end  appears  side  by  side  with 
the  immediate  future,  but  when  the  latter  is  reached  there 
appears  between  it  and  tne  end  an  expanse  of  time.  What 


.  (2    .nnx  p^ns  nn«  ;rns 


SOLEMN  QUESTIONS.  19 

in  the  perspective  seemed  shrunk  together  is  now  widely 
extended.  The  prophets  of  the  time  of  the  exile  connected 
with  the  end  of  the  captivity,  and  the  faithful  believers  in 
the  time  of  the  Selucidae  connected  with  the  end  of  the  tyr- 
anny of  Antiochus  Epiphanes  extraordinary  hopes,  which, 
when  these  respective  consummations  occurred,  were  only 
imperfectly  fulfilled.  This  is  by  no  means  derogatory  to 
the  value  of  prophecy;  it  is  simply  God's  order  that  the 
look  into  the  distant,  and  the  look  into  the  immediate  fut- 
ure —  the  divine  and  the  human  —  should  be  combined  in  it. 

In  one  point  the  prophets  of  the  time  of  the  exile  are 
-agreed;  they  knew  only  two  temples,  that  of  Solomon,  the 
first  house?  which  the  Chaldseans  destroyed,  and  a  post-exilic 
temple,  the  second  house?  The  temple  described  by  Ezekiel 
is  not  a  third  temple  of  stone  which  is  to  be  erected  at  the 
«nd  of  time,  when  the  second  temple  shall  have  met  with 
the  same  fate  as  the  first  (a  fate  nowhere  foretold),  but  it 
is  an  ideal  for  the  realization  of  which  the  post-exilic 
prophet  hoped,  when  Israel  shall  have  repented  (Ezek.  43: 
10,  n),  and  all  his  tribes,  and  with  renewed  first  love  re- 
turned to  the  land  of  their  fathers,  a  condition  which  was 
not  fulfilled.  Chapters  40  to  48,  of  the  book  of  Ezekiel,  are 
an  unfulfilled  prophecy.  On  account  of  their  disagreement 
with  the  pre-exilic  and  post-exilic  order  of  divine  service 
they  are  for  the  synagogue  an  unsolved  riddle,  so  that  their 
explanation  is  a  task  reserved  for  Elijah.3  On  their  account 
the  whole  book  of  Ezekiel  was  in  danger  of  being  declared 
apocryphal;  but  a  certain  Chanania,  with  a  store  of  three 
hundred  barrels  of  oil,  retired  to  his  study  and  happily  ex- 
plained away  all  the  contradictions  against  the  Law.  (Cha- 
13  a.)  Such  is  the  assertion,  but  nowhere  do  we  find 
samples  of  their  supposed  reconciliation,  nor  does  this  tem- 
ple anywhere  appear  as  the  goal  of  Israel's  hope.  In  fact, 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  third  temple  mentioned  by  Eze- 
kiel; there  is  a  second  temple,  as  it  was  to  be  according  to 
Ezekiel's  conception,  but  it  was  never  really  built. 

When  by  permission  of  Cyrus,  a  number  of  exiles  under 


.iyt}  rp3  (2       .p^x-i  rvs  (1 
.rum1?  FP7K  -pnj»  11  nuns  (3 


20  SOLEMN  QUESTIONS. 

Zerubbabel,  the  prince,  and  Joshua,  the  high  priest,  had 
returned  to  their  fatherland,  the  foundation  of  a  new  tem- 
ple was  laid,  in  534  B.  C.,  the  second  year  after  the  return- 
The  building  was  soon  interrupted,  but  was  resumed  in  520 
B.  C.,  the  second  year  of  the  reign  of  Darius  Hystaspes.  In 
this  year,  the  second  of  the  reign  of  Darius,  was  it  that 
Haggai  and  Zechariah  began  to  preach.  These  both  proph- 
esy that  the  beginning  of  the  Messianic  time  would  occur 
in  the  time  of  this  temple.  "  The  glory  of  this  latter  house," 
we  read  in  Haggai  2: 9,  "  shall  be  greater  than  of  the  form- 
er, saith  the  Lord  of  hosts;  and  in  this  place  will  I  give 
peace,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts." 

And  in  Zechariah  3:  8,  we  read:  "  Hear  now,  O  Joshua, 
the  high  priest,  thou,  and  thy  fellows  that  sit  with  thee, 
for  they  are  men  wondered  at:  for,  behold,  I  will  bring- 
forth  my  servant,  THE  BRANCH."  From  the  time  that  Isaiah 
4:  2,  Jeremiah  23:5,  and  33:  15,  were  written,  THE  BRANCH 
had  been  the  name  of  the  Messiah,  as  of  the  branch  of 
David  which  was  to  grow  from  lowliness  to  glory,  and  to 
spread  around  him  everywhere  salvation  and  glory. 

In  the  6th  chapter  of  Zechariah  we  read  that  the  prophet 
was  to  make  "  crowns  and  set  them  upon  the  head  of  Josh- 
ua, the  son  of  Josedech,  the  high  priest,"  that  he  may  rep- 
resent in  a  picture  what  was  to  come:  "Behold  the  man 
whose  name  is  THE  BRANCH,  and  he  shall  grow  up  out  of 
his  place  (his  home),  and  he  shall  build  the  temple  of  the 
Lord;  and  he  shall  bear  the  glory,  and  shall  sit  and  rule 
upon  his  throne;  and  he  shall  be  a  priest  upon  his  throne; 
and  the  counsel  of  peace  shall  be  between  them  both  (viz., 
the  high  priest  and  the  king,  /.  <?.,  the  two  offices  now  sep- 
arated from. one  another)." 

At  the  time  when  this  prophecy  was  spoken  the  build- 
ing of  the  second  temple  had  been  resumed  by  permission 
of  Darius.  It  was  easy  to  see  that  it  would  be  far  behind 
the  Solomonic  temple  in  magnificence.  But  it  is  endowed 
with  all  the  more  glorious  promises.  It  is  to  be  the  abode  of 
peace;  the  Prince  of  Peace,  king  and  priest  in  one  person, 
after  the  order  of  Melchizedek,  is  to  appear  in  the  time  of 
this  temple.  In  the  sixth  year  of  Darius,  in  506  B.  C.,  the 


SOLEMN  QUESTIONS.  21 

building  \vas  finished.  Under  these  circumstances,  the 
temple  which  THE  BRANCH  builds,  the  Son  of  David,  the 
ultimate  fulfillment  of  the  promise  given  in  2  Samuel  7,  can 
be  no  third  temple  of  stone.  History  moves  forward,  not 
backward.  But  what  kind  of  temple  was  he  to  build?  If 
Jesus  is  the  Messiah,  we  have  an  intimation  regarding  it 
in  the  answer  Jtie  gives  after  having  cast  out  of  the  temple 
the  money-changers  and  those  that  sold  sacrificial  animals, 
to  those  who  wanted  to  know  what  authority  He  had  for 
His  actions.  That  answer  was  an  enigma  even  to  His  dis- 
ciples. "  Destroy  this  temple  and  in  three  days  I  will  raise 
it  up."  John  2:  19.  Here,  too,  the  temple  which  was  to  come 
in  place  of  the  post-exilic  temple  restored  by  Herod,  is 
certainly  not  one  of  stone. 

Supposing  the  temple  which  THE  BRANCH  was  to  build 
was  to  be  one  of  stone,  \ve  should  have  to  assume  the  ap- 
pearance of  THE  BRANCH  to  occur  at  a  time  when  the  sec- 
ond temple  is  destroyed.  But  that  would  contradict  Mala- 
chi,  the  last  of  the'three  post-exilic  prophets,  who  prophe- 
sies in  the  ist  verse  of  his  3d  chapter:  "  Behold,  I  will  send 
my  messenger,  and  he  shall  prepare  the  way  before  me; 
and  the  Lord,  whom  ye  seek,  shall  suddenly  come  to  his 
temple,  even  the  messenger  of  the  covenant  whom  ye  de- 
light in:  behold,  he  shall  come,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts." 

Here  are  three  different  persons  introduced.  The  way- 
preparing  messenger,  viz.,  Elijah,  as  he  is  called  later  on; 
the  Lord,  i.  e.,  God;  and  the  Messenger  of  the  Covenant,  /.  e., 
the  Mediator  of  the  new  covenant  promised  by  the  proph- 
ets. Jer.  31:31,  Isa.  42:  6:  49:8.  What  we  are  to  understand 
is,  I  suppose,  that  the  coming  of  this  Mediator  of  this  cov- 
enant is,  indirectly,  the  coming  Lord  Himself.  But  what 
we  are  concerned  with  is  only  this:  that  the  day  of  the 
Lord,  which  accomplishes  judgment  and  salvation,  and 
ushers  in  the  time  of  the  new  covenant,  occurs  during 
the  time  of  the  second  temple.  This  second  temple  has, 
however,  been  more  than  fifteen  hundred  years  removed 
from  the  holy  mountain,  so  that  not  one  stone  has  re- 
mained upon  another. 

Kas,  after  all,  that  been  ful filled  long  ago,  which  you, 


22  SOLEMN   QUESTIONS. 

my  dear  Jewish  reader,  expect  yet  to  come  hereafter?  Is 
not,  after  all,  perhaps,  that  Jesus  who  once  addressed  to 
the  Jewish  people  the  words,  "  Behold,  your  house  is  left 
unto  you  desolate," — is  not  He,  after  all,  THE  BRANCH  '  spok- 
en of  by  Zechariah,  and  "the  Messenger  of  the  Covenant" 
spoken  of  by  Malachi?  Has  He  not  truly  ushered  in  a  new 
time  in  which  the  kingdom  of  God  went  over  from  the 
rightful  basis  to  the  other  nations,  as  Malachi,  according 
to  the  ist  chapter  and  nth  verse,  declares  to  have  actually 
seen?  These  are  questions  addressed  to  the  conscience, 
which  every  Israelite  to  whom  truth  is  dearer  than  his  ac- 
customed notions,  should  ask  himself,  as  in  the  sight  of  God. 


IT  is  then,  a  spiritual  temple  of  living  stones,  which,, 
according  to  the  prospect  held  out  by  Zechariah's  prophecy, 
THE  BRANCH,  who  combines  in  himself  the  priestly  and  roy- 
al offices,  would  build.  The  congregation  of  the  New  Cov- 
enant, whose  mediator  is  the  messenger  predicted  by  Mal- 
achi, is  this  spiritual  temple.  For  it  is  a  congregation,, 
gathered,  in  the  first  instance,  out  of  Israel,  but  afterwards 
breaking  down  the  national  limitation,  and  reaching  out 
towards  all  nations.  It  is  a  congregation,  not  kept  together 
by  the  bonds  of  consanguinity,  but  it  is  a  spiritual  congre- 
gation, united  by  their  unity  with  the  God  of  revelation. 
The  Old  Covenant  is  dissolved  after  it  has  been  shown  to  be 
insufficient  to  realize  the  counsel  of  God  which  is  directed 
toward  the  whole  race  of  man.  National  privilege  has 
ceased  after  having  performed  its  preparatory  service. 
The  law  of  Israel  is  a  national  law,  and  as  such  is  unsuit- 
able to  become  the  rule  of  life  for  a  congregation  composed 
of  all  nations.  It  was  a  preparatory  step,  and  is  now,  since 
Christ  appeared,  an  obsolete  platform.  The  Prophets,  and 
Psalmists,  and  the  writers  of  the  so-called  Books  of  Wis- 
dom,3 laid,  already,  stress  upon  the  essential  in  religion; 
they  deprecated  the  external  compliance  with  ceremonial 
laws,  demanded  in  place  of  animal  and  vegetable  sacrifices 
self-dedication  of  the  inner  man,  and  reduced  the  real  will 

.roan  •'-so  (3     .rp",an  -^o  (i      .nos  (1 


SOLEMN  QUESTIONS.  23 

of  God,  whose  reflex  are  the  ceremonial  prescriptions,  to 
the  real  and  immediate  religious  concerns.  They  prepared 
for  what  has  been  realized  by  the  Christian  religion,  name- 
ly, the  deepening  and  widening  of  the  religion  of  the  Law. 
Of  course,  if  the  Mosaic  law  were  truly  an  unchangeable 
divine  revelation,  Judaism  would  be  right  in  opposing  the 
Christian  religion.  Maimonides  takes  up  that  position; 
but  not  without  opposition  from  other  Jewish  dogmatists 
like  Isaac  Albo,  who  maintains:  God  Himself  may,  in 
changed  circumstances,  declare  a  change  in  what  He  orig- 
inally commanded.  A  proof  of  this  is  to  be  found,  e.  g.,  in 
the  relationship  of  the  laws  given  in  the  book  of  Deuter- 
onomy, dating  from  the  fortieth  year  after  the  exodus,  to- 
ward the  law  given  from  Sinai  in  the  first  year. 

That  the  Hebrew  male  slave  should  be  free  in  the  sev- 
enth year,  according  to  Ex.  21:  2,  is,  according  to  Deut.  15: 
'12,  extended  into  granting  the  same  privilege  to  the  Hebrew 
maid-servant.  The  general  law,  in  Ex.  21:16,  that  the 
stealing  of  men  is  to  be  punished  with  death,  is  narrowed, 
according  to  Deut.  24:  7,  so  as  to  apply  only  to  the  case  of  the 
stolen  person  who  has  been  sold  as  a  slave,  being  a  Hebrew. 
While,  according  to  Lev.  17:3, no  sacrificial  animal  may  be 
slain  except  at  the  tabernacle,  the  killing  of  animals  for  do- 
mestic use  is,  according  to  Deut.  12,  allowed  in  any  locality. 
And  again,  the  old  law,  according  to  which,  wherever  God 
is  present,  a  plain  altar  of  earth,  or  uncut  stones,  and  with- 
out steps,  should  be  erected,  according  to  Ex.  20:  24  ff,  was 
superseded  by  the  erection  of  the  tabernacle  and  the  brazen 
altar,1  and  by  the  demand  of  the  book  of  Deuteronomy  for 
a  central  sanctuary,  as  the  exclusive  place  for  sacrifices. 
These  are  only  a  few  examples,  which  might  be  augmented 
by  others  referring  to  laws  about  festivals  as  given  in  the 
Pentateuch.  The  names  of  the  festivals,  the  number  of  the 

great  feasts,  the  prescriptions  referring  to  sacrifices, all 

have  been  modified,  in  the  course  of  time.  And  if,  within 
the  time  covered  by  the  Pentateuch,  the  law  underwent 
changes,  why  should  changes  which'  have  a  right  to  lay 


24  SOLEMN   QUESTIONS. 

claim  to  divine  authority,  be  considered  impossible  in  the 
time  after  the  Pentateuch?  The  prophets  prove  the  con- 
trary. The  law,  according  to  Deut.  23:  2,  excludes  all 
eunuchs  from  the  congregation  of  the  Lord.  But  the 
prophet  Isaiah,  according  to  56:3-5,  of  his  book,  breaks 
through  this  barrier  of  the  law,  and  comforts  the  eunuchs 
returning  from  Babylon  by  the  promise  of  membership 
with  all  its  rights.  It  might  be  objected  that  though  such 
modifications  in  isolated  cases  might  be  admissible,  the 
complete  abrogation  of  the  ceremonial  law  is  inconceivable. 

But  for  the  prophets  there  exists  no  such  insurmount- 
able difficulty.  "Wherewith  shall  I  come  before  the  Lord," 
we  read  in  Micah  6:  6-8,  "and  bow  myself  before  the  high 
God?  Shall  I  come  before  him  with  burnt  offerings,  with 
calves  of  a  year  old?  Will  the  Lord  be  pleased  with  thou- 
sands of  rams,  or  with  ten  thousands  of  rivers  of  oil?  Shall 
I  give  my  first-born  for  my  transgression,  the  fruit  of  my 
body  for  the  sin  of  my  soul?  He  hath  showed  thee,  Oman, 
what  is  good;  and  what  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee,  but 
to  do  justly,  and  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with 
thy  God?" 

And  Jeremiah  says,  in  deprecation  of  the  hypocritical 
sacrificial  services:  "  I  spake  not  unto  your  fathers,  nor 
commanded  them  in  the  day  that  I  brought  them  out  of  the 
land  of  Egypt,  concerning  burnt-offerings  or  sacrifices;  but 
this  thing  commanded  I  them,  saying:  Obey  my  voice,  and 
I  will  be  your  God,  and  ye  shall  be  my  people."  Jer.  7:  22. 
These  are  declarations  which  sound  like  anticipations  of 
the  future  abrogation  of  the  ceremonial  law. 

It  is  different,  indeed,  with  Ezekiel,  who,  in  chapters 
40  to  48,  propounds  a  new  ceremonial  law  for  the  whole  of 
Israel  returned  from  the  land  of  exile.  But  the  new  eccle- 
siastical and  political  commonwealth  which  he  describes 
has  not  been  realized,  its  conditions  having  remained  un- 
fulfilled. But  this  part  of  the  book  of  Ezekiel  is  on  this 
very  ground  an  important  part  of  the  canon  of  the  Script- 
ures, that  it  furnishes-  a  clear  proof  against  the  immutabil- 
ity of  the  Mosaic  law. 

The  Midrash  says  frequently  that  the  Holy  One — bless- 


SOLEMN  QUESTIONS.  25 

ed  be  He — will  give  a  new  law  through  the  Messiah.  The 
new  feature  of  this  law  is  that  it  discloses  the  object  and 
spirit  of  the  old. 

Does  not  the  preacher  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
correspond  to  this  picture  of  the  future? 

And  another  passage  in  the  Midrash  says:  In  the  days 
of  the  Messiah  all  sacrifices  will  cease,  except  thank-offer- 
ings.1 Is  not  Jesus,  perhaps,  after  all,  .that  servant  of  the 
Lord  who,  according  to  the  prophecy  in  Isa.  53:  10,  will 
"  make  his  soul  an  offering  for  sin,"1  for  his  people? 


JEWS  who  are  familiar  with  the  New  Testament,  in 
arguing  for  the  immutability  of  the  law,  will  perhaps  ap- 
peal to  the  sayings  of  Jesus  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
(Matt.  5: 17),  "  Think  not  that  I  am  come  to  destroy  the 
law  or  the  prophets;  I  am  not  come  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfill." 
This  is  the  saying  which  is  also  cited  in  the  Talmud  (tract 
Sabbath,  116  b),  but  incorrectly  rendered:  "  I  have  not  come 
to  beat  down3  the  law  of  Moses,  but  to  add4  to  it."  The 
right  idea  is  still  to  be  recognized  even  in  this  disfigure- 
ment of  the  meaning  of  the  expression.  Far  from  desiring 
to  do  any  injury  to  the  revealed  law,  or  to  deny  its  divine 
authority,  Jesus — in  opposition  to  an  observance  of  the 
law  which  clung  to  the  letter  and  considered  its  external 
fulfillment  to  suffice, — wished  to  teach  and  render  possible 
a  deep  and  true  inward  realization  of  the  law,  which  should 
comprehend  its  radical  and  fundamental  principle  as  the 
veritable  will  and  intention  of  God.  As  Jesus  is  the  ful- 
filler  of  prophecy,  since  His  person  and  His  work  is  the 
realization  of  what  was  foretold  by  the  prophets,  so  also  is 
He  the  fulfiller  of  the  law,  since  as  a  mediator  in  word  and 
deed  He  has  accomplished  the  realization  of  what  God,  the 
Law-giver,  had  in  view. 

Because  He  carries  the  external  and  ceremonial  pre- 
cepts of  the  law  back  to  their  heart  and  spirit,  it  cannot  be 
drawn  from  His  words  that  they  are  .to  be  broken  down. 


.cv*  (2      .minn  pnpo  pn  (i 
(4      .nns^B1?  (3 


26  SOLEMN  QUESTIONS. 

On  the  contrary,  He  recognizes  the  binding  character  of 
the  whole  law  at  that  time,  when  He  adds,  in  verse  19, 
"  Whosoever  therefore  shall  break  one  of  these  least  com- 
mandments, and  shall  teach  men  so,  he  shall  be  called  the 
least  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven;  but  whosoever  shall  do 
and  teach  them,  the  same  shall  be  called  great  in  the  king- 
dom of  heaven."  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  identical  with 
the  Messianic  kingdom.  It  is  the  new  order  in  the  universe 
and  in  human  life,  which  has  its  center  and  its  head  in 
Jesus  Christ.  This  kingdom  of  heaven  does  not  come  into 
existence  by  means  of  a  sudden  breaking  down  of  the  old 
order,  and  whoever  of  his  own  will  looses  one  of  the  least 
precepts  of  the  revealed  law  does  it  at  his  peril. 

Jesus  could  not  speak  otherwise  during  His  life  and 
work  here  below;  for,  as  Paul  wrote  to  the  Galatians  (Gal. 
4:4),  "When  the  fullness  of  the  time  was  come,  God  sent 
forth  His  Son,  made  of  a  woman,  made  under  the  law."  He 
was  the  bodily  son  of  a  Jewish  mother,  the  legal  though 
not  the  bodily  son  of  a  Jewish  father,  and  through  circum- 
cision He  was  united  with  the  congregation  of  Israel  and 
received  into  participation  of  its  rights  and  duties.  He 
defends  those  of  His  disciples  who  set  aside  the  rabbinical 
ordinances  in  regard  to  the  washing  of  the  hands  before 
meals  (Mark  7:6,  7);  He  speaks  in  their  behalf  when  they 
plucked  ears  of  corn  on  the  Sabbath  in  order  to  appease 
their  hunger  (Mark  2:  23-28);  and  claims  for  Himself  free- 
dom to  do  works  of  benevolence  and  mercy  also  upon  the 
Sabbath;  but  never  do  we  read  that  He  declared  the  Sab- 
bath commandment,  or  any  commandment  of  the  Mosaic 
law,  not  to  be  binding,  or  that  He  ever  did  aught  against 
the  word,  the  thought,  and  the  spirit  of  that  law.  His  ad- 
herence to  the  law  is,  of  course,  not  that  of  the  Pharisees, 
but  that  of  the  Prophets.  When  he  says,  "  Not  that  which 
goeth  into  the  mouth  defileth  a  man,  but  that  which  com. 
eth  out  of  the  mouth,  this  defileth  a  man  (Matt.  15:11), 
He  releases  neither  Himself  nor  His  disciples  from  the  ob- 
servance of  the  dietary  laws:  but  He  wishes,  nevertheless, 
to  say  that  the  polluting  effect  of  forbidden  food  is  as  noth- 
ing in  comparison  with  the  polluting  effect  of  foul  talk,  and 


SOLEMN  QUESTIONS.  27 

profane,  indecent  speech.  It  is  similar  to  the  words  of  the 
prophet  Isaiah,  when  he  says  that  it  is  not  a  fast  acceptable 
to  God  for  a  man  to  afflict  his  soul  and  to  spread  sackcloth 
and  ashes  under  him,  but  rather  to  deal  his  bread  to  the 
hungry,  and  to  bring  the  poor  that  are  cast  out  to  his 
house.  Isa.  58:  5,  7.  And  when  Jesus  said  to  the  Pharisees 
who  complained  of  His  intercourse  with  publicans  and  sin- 
ners: "Go  ye  and  learn  what  that  meaneth,  I  will  have 
mercy  and  not  sacrifice."  (Matt.  9: 13),  He  simply  confirms 
an  old  expression  of  the  prophet  Hosea  (6:6),  which  He 
employs  as  His  own.  He  does  not  remove  the  obligation 
to  bring  the  offerings  prescribed  for  particular  cases;  for 
He  said  to  the  leper,  "Go  thy  way,  show  thyself  to  the 
priest,  and  offer  the  gift  that  Moses  commanded"  (Matt. 
8:  4),  and  He  obliges  the  one  who  has  quarreled  with  his 
brother  to  interrupt  the  offering  of  his  gift  until  he  has 
become  reconciled.  Matt.  5:  23,  24.  He  considers,  therefore* 
the  offering  of  the  gift  to  be  of  service,  but  He  delares  that 
the  outward  gift  is  worthless  before  God  if  it  is  not  accom- 
panied by  the  giving  up  of  the  evil  and  hateful  self-will. 
He  was  one  of  that  people  for  whom  sacrifices  were  offered 
in  the  temple  every  morning  and  evening,  and  on  all  festi- 
vals. He,  however,  did  not  feel  obliged  to  bring  an  offer- 
ing for  Himself  personally,  for  He  knew  Himself  to  be 
without  sin,  and  it  is  also  nowhere  related  that  He  appeared 
before  God  with  a  personal  offering  (the  so-called  ikagiga], 
upon  the  occasion  of  the  three  great  feasts  according  to 
the  old  law.  Ex.  23:  14-16;  34:  23.  The  temple  tribute  of  a 
half -shekel  He,  however,  paid,  in  order  not  to  give  offense, 
although  He  felt  conscious  that  He  was  free  from  the  obli- 
gation of  the  tax  of  the  temple  because  of  His  relation  of 
Sonship  to  the  Lord  of  the  temple  (Matt.  17:24-27),  but 
He  was  not  able  to  present  an  offering  for  Himself;  for 
His  inmost  thought  was,  "  Sacrifice  and  offering  thou  didst 
not  desire;  mine  ears  hast  thou  opened;  burnt-offering 
and  sin-offering  hast  thou  not  required.  Then  said  I,  Lo,  I 
come;  in  the  volume  of  the  book  it  is  written  of  me,  I  de- 
light to  do  thy  will,  O  my  God;  yea,  thy  law  is  within  my 
heart."  Psa.  40:  7-9,  English  Bible,  6-8. 


28  SOLEMN   QUESTIONS. 

He  was  made  under  the  law,  imder  the  law  in  every 
particular,  bound  by  its  ceremonies  and  its  statutes  in  ref- 
erence to  matters  of  outward  life;  for  so  it  was  God's  decree 
that  He  Himself,  having  submitted  to  the  law,  should  re- 
deem His  people  from  the  constraint  and  the  limitations 
and  the  curse  of  the  law.  He  was  made  under  the  law, 
but  at  the  same  time  He  continued  the  work  of  the  proph- 
ets, since  He  had  set  those  precepts  of  the  law,  which  had 
been  observed  in  the  letter  by  hard  and  unsanctified  hearts, 
over  against  moral  duties  to  man  as  man,  and  gave  to  these 
a  deeper  significance.  The  law  was  to  wear  itself  out  in 
Him.  and  was  to  pronounce  His  death  sentence,  since  zeal 
on  account  of  the  law  persecuted  Him  even  to  His  death. 
It  was  a  boastful  Pharisaic  strictness  as  to  the  letter  of 
the  law  which  condemned  His  insistence  upon  the  spirit 
of  the  law  as  apostasy  from  the  law,  and  which  allowed 
itself  to  rush  onward  to  the  blasphemy  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
who  spoke  and  worked  through  Him.  And  is  it  not  also 
true  to  day,  that  Reformed  Judaism,  which  opposes  itself 
to  the  law  from  the  prophetic  stand-point  of  spiritual  great- 
ness and  moral  purity,  is  willing  to  recognize  the  noble 
struggle  of  Jesus,  while  the  so-called  orthodox  Judaism, 
when  it  is  obliged  to  mention  Him,  thrusts  Him  far  off 
with  the  imprecation,  "  May  His  name  and  memory  be 
blotted  out?"1 

He  was  made  under  the  law  until  death;  but  after 
He,  through  His  death,  entered  the  life  of  glory,  He  was 
taken  from  the  limitation  of  the  national  law,  as  also  from 
attachment  to  an  especial  nation.  The  Thorah,  which 
was  revealed  from  Him,  the  exalted  Son  of  God  and  man, 
by  means  of  the  Spirit  of  Pentecost,  which  followed  the 
Passover  of  His  death  and  resurrection,  is  that  law  intend- 
ed for  all  mankind,  concerning  which  it  was  prophesied  by 
Micah  and  Isaiah,  ''  Out  of  Zion  [as  before  from  Sinai,] 
shall  go  forth  the  law,  and  the  word  of  the  Lord  from 
Jerusalem  "  (Micah  4:  2,  Isa.  2:  3),  and  for  which  "  the  isles" 
(/.  e.,  the  distant  heathen  lands),  "shall  wait."  Isa.  42:4. 

.van  IOTP  n«r  (i 


SOLEMN   QUESTIONS.  29 

"  The  law,"  says  Paul,  "was  our  schoolmaster  to  bring  us 
unto  Christ,  that  we  might  be  justified  by  faith.  But  after 
that  faith  is  come  we  are  no  longer  under  a  schoolmaster.  ' 
Gal.  3:  24,  25.  The  apostle  did  not  live  till  August,  A.  D. 
70,  when  the  will  of  God  that  the  national  law  should  yield 
to  the  universal  law,  for  which  the  former  was  a  prepara- 
tion, was  confirmed  by  the  fiery  judgment  decreed  for  the 
temple  in  Jerusalem.  Since  then  a  great  part  of  the  cere- 
monial  law  has  been  without  force.  Numberless  com- 
mands, which  were  obligatory  in  the  Holy  Land,  or  in  the 
Temple,  could  not  therefore  be  put  into  execution.  All 
the  laws  of  sacrifice,  the  centre  of  the  ceremonial  law,  be- 
came relaxed;  for  the  legal  place  of  sacrifice  lay  in  ashes, 
and  Zion,  the  temple  mountain,  was  no  longer  an  Israelit- 
ish  possession.  And  this  condition  of  things  has  lasted, 
not  merely  for  decades,  as  at  the  time  of  the  Babylonian 
captivity,  but  for  nearly  two  millenniums;  and  it  seems  as 
though  it  would  last  forever.  And  then,  too,  the  universal 
feeling  brought  about  by  Christianity  has  effectually  de- 
stroyed the  bloody  sacrifice  for  the  Jewish  consciousness. 
Holdheim,  the  renowned  founder  of  Reformed  Judaism, 
says  in  his  discourse  upon  the  Ceremonial  Law  in  the  Messi- 
anic Kingdom,  1845,  p.  40,  "  We  cannot  speak  of  a  sacrifice  in 
the  Messianic  kingdom,  since  even  to-day  it  is  in  the  high- 
est degree  contrary  to  every  pure  idea  of  faith."  He  sees 
a  confirmation  of  this  in  the  fact  that  orthodox  Judaism 
has  failed  in  every  attempt  to  provide  for  the  possibility  of 
sacrifices,  although  it  maintains  that  the  ancient  holiness 
remains  to  the  temple,  even  in  its  condition  of  destruc- 
tion;1 we  need  therefore  only  to  find  a  piece  of  the  temple 
court  in  order  to  put  the  law  of  sacrifice  again  in  operation. 
But  no  Rothschild,  no  Montefiore,  no  Cremieux,  has  ever 
made  a  single  attempt  with  this  in  view,  for'no  person  in  the 
present  state  of  culture  wishes  the  restoration  of  a  sanctu- 
ary which  echoes  with  the  groans  of  dying  beasts,  and 
whose  floor,  like  that  of  a  slaughter-house,  swims  in  blood. 
Religion,  spiritualized  by  Christianity,  cannot  endure  it; 


30  SOLEMN    QUESTIONS. 

nor  can  the  Jewish  religion  escape  the  influence  of  this 
tendency  toward  refinement,  even  though  it  endeavors  to 
resist  Christianity. 

We  believe  we  have  here  shown  that  the  downfall  of 
the  national  ceremonial  law,  although  it  could  not  have 
been  proclaimed  by  Jesus  Himself,  nevertheless,  from  in- 
ward necessity  and  by  a  divine  decree,  was  the  consequence 
of  His  coming. 


THE  Christian  who  believes  in  the  Bible  does  not  yield 
to  the  Israelite  in  his  esteem  for  the  Pentateuchal  Law- 
He  recognizes  the  revealed  character  of  this  law  and  its 
incomparable  superiority  to  all  the  codes  of  antiquity.  It 
maintains  its  pre-eminent  character,  as  over  against  the 
idea  of  justice  current  in  Christian  states  in  times  past,  for 
example,  in  regard  to  punishment;  for  it  knows  no  tor- 
ture, and  it  excludes  from  the  death  execution  those  fear- 
ful abuses  and  torments  which  have  characterized  even  the 
penal  code  of  Charles  V.  And  as  to  civil  matters  it  is  pre- 
eminent, since  by  a  suitable  distribution  of  the  soil  it 
checked  poverty,  and  by  the  assurance  of  hereditary  pos- 
sessions it  prevented  the  impoverishment  of  a  family. 
With  justice  could  Moses,  the  great  law-giver,  say,  "  What 
nation  is  there  so  great,  that  hath  statutes  and  judgments 
so  righteous  as  all  this  law,  which  I  set  before  you  this 
day?  "  Deut.  4:8.  And  with  justice  also  does  David  con- 
fess in  the  igth  Psalm,  "  The  law  of  the  Lord  is  perfect."  ' 
The  law  is  really  perfect  as  to  its  innermost  motives  and 
its  ultimate  ends.  But  with  equal  justice  must  we  con- 
cede, as  children  of  the  Christian  dispensation,  that  accord- 
ing to  the  letter  it  is  only  relatively  perfect.  It  is  very  true 
that  the  double  command,  "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy 
God  with  all  thine  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with 
all  thy  might;"  (Deut.  6:  5)  and,  "Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself;"2  (Lev.  19:  18)  expresses  the  will  of 
God  so  completely  that  even  the  New  Testament  revela- 
tion can  only  reiterate  these  words.  Mark  12:  28-34,  Rom. 
13:  9  ff.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  also  true  that  in  the 

(2      nsron  (l 


SOLEMN   QUESTIONS.  31 

context  of  the  Thorah  this  double  command  addresses  it- 
self to  Israel  as  a  nation,  as  is  seen  from  the  fact  that  the 
command  to  love  one's  neighbor  is  especially  extended  to 
the  stranger  dwelling  within  the  bounds  of  Israel.  Lev.  19: 
34.  This  two-fold  command,  which  binds  together  the 
first  and  second  tables  of  the  Decalogue,1  likewise  lays 
down  a  system  of  statutes,  which  have  in  view  the  resto- 
ration of  a  holy  people,  whose  king  is  the  all-holy  One,  and 
accordingly  for  the  most  part  having  to  do  with  the  exter- 
nal relations  of  life.  The  establishment  of  a  national  peo- 
ple of  God  was  the  necessary  preparation  for  the  establish- 
ment of  a  universal  people  of  God  from  all  mankind.  The 
relationship  into  which  God  entered  with  Israel  as  His  chos- 
en people  was  the  ground  of  the  future  kingdom  of  God, 
comprehending  all  nations.  The  realization  of  the  divine 
decree  which  has  for  its  object  the  salvation  of  mankind, 
came  within  the  limits  of  a  nationality,  not  that  tnese  lim- 
its should  abide,  but  that  when  they  had  accomplished 
their  preparatory  end  they  should  be  removed.  Its  en- 
trance within  the  national  limits,  had,  however,  as  its  result, 
a  contradiction  of  the  moral  ideal.  The  Law,  as  national, 
cannot  avoid  an  external  and  particular  character  insepa- 
rable from  a  state  and  a  nation,  and  the  degree  of  spiritual 
and  moral  culture  among  the  people  made  necessary  cer- 
tain adaptations,  which  could  be  permitted,  since  the  law- 
giver did  not  claim  to  bring  the  true  will  of  God  to  im 
mediate  and  full  realization.  The  Thorah  accommodates 
itself  to  certain  firmly  rooted  habits  and  customs,  such  as 
blood-revenge,  slavery,  polygamy,  and  levirate  marriages, 
since  it  is  satisfied  with  certain  alleviating,  limiting  and 
regulating  restrictions  upon  them,  and  contains,  here  and 
there,  namely,  in  the  permitted  grounds  for  divorce,  some 
striking  defects,  since  it  restricts  them  to  the  limits  of 
what  is  at  present  attainable.  In  comparison  with  other 
legal  codes  of  the  ancient  world,  it  amply  vindicates  its  di- 
vine origin;  but  it  has  also  a  limited  human  side,  because 
of  the  condition  of  morality  and  of  culture  in  its  time.  It 

rrwy  (1 


32  SOLEMN   QUESTIONS. 

conceals  an  eternal  kernel  in  a  temporary  shell.  Judaism 
itself,  in  the  lapse  of  time,  has  come  to  esteem  its  human 
elements  as  partly  impracticable  and  partly  contrary  to  the 
progress  of  morality. 

Polygamy  and  levirate  marriages  furnish  many  in- 
structive examples  to  show  that  the  Mosaic  law,  as  being  a 
special  national  code  for  Israel,  is  not  an  expression  of  the 
exact  will  of  God  for  all  mankind  equally.  These  exam- 
ples also  show  that  the  Thorah  does  not  conceal  this  but 
plainly  intimates  it.  Marriage  is  (Gen.  2:  18  ff)  so  close  a 
relation  of  personal  intimacy  that  it  cannot  be  conceived 
except  as  a  relation  of  two  persons  only;  it  is  impossible  to 
think  of  it  as  a  relation  existing  at  the  same  time  between 
one  man  and  several  women,  or  between  one  woman  and 
several  men.  Only  monogamy  is  true  marriage;  polygamy 
contradicts  the  idea  of  marriage.  Nevertheless,  polygamy 
is  permitted  in  the  Mosaic  law.  The  ancient  custom,  sup- 
ported upon  the  precedent  of  the  patriarchs,  was  too  deeply 
rooted  to  be  destroyed.  The  law  with  regard  to  inherit- 
ance (Deut.  21:15-17,)  shows  that  a  man  may  have  two 
proper  wives.  Another  law  (Ex.  21:10)  assures  the  right 
of  one  wife  against  one  taken  afterward.  It  is  permitted 
on  certain  conditions  that  one  may  have  as  wife  or  concu- 
bine a  captive  taken  in  war.  Deut.  21: 10-14  The  law  with 
regard  to  the  king  forbids  the  king  to  have  many  wives, 
but  without  restricting  him  to  monogamy.  Deut.  17:  17. 

The  example  of  David  and  Solomon  shows  what  re- 
sults followed  the  relaxation  of  the  Thorah  in  later  times. 
Jehoiada,  the  tutor  of  the  young  king  Joash,  took  for  him 
two  wives.  2  Chron.  24:  3.  And  the  Thorah  even  requires 
the  addition  of  one  wife  to  another  in  one  case,  namely, 
in  the  law  of  the  marriage  of  brothers-in-law  (Deut. 25: 5  ff) 
for  the  case  that  the  living  brother  is  already  married  is  no 
doubt  included,  although  this  case,  and  likewise  the  case 
that  the  one  dead  had  several  wives,  is  left  without  men- 
tion, and  the  old  custom  is  not  sanctioned,  unless  possibly 
in  the  chaliza,  the  ceremony  described  in  Deut.  25:  9.  It  in- 
dicates a  progress  in  the  spirit  of  the  law,  if  not  in  con- 
formity with  its  letter,  that  the  Mishna  Jebamoth  extends 


SOLEMN     QUESTIONS.  33 

the  right  of  chaliza  many  times  casuisticnlly.  In  the  Mid- 
dle Age.  Gerson  von  Metz  (died  A.  D.  1028),  who  was  called 
the  Light  of  the  Exiles,1  forbade  polygamy  and  only  per- 
mitted it  by  way  of  exception,  but  without  being  able  to 
accomplish  his  end.  For  almost  two  centuries  the  wealthy 
French  and  Spanish  Jews  lived  in  bigamy,  and  it  is  due  to 
the  increasing  influence  of  Christian  government,  at  least 
in  Europe,  that  monogamy  became  the  rule  among  Jews. 
How  far  the  spirit  of  Christianity  struggled  against  plural 
marriages  is  shown  by  the  secret  marriage  of  the  Land- 
grave Philip,  of  Hesse,  with  Margaret  von  der  Saal,  in  ad- 
dition to  his  marriage  with  a  daughter  of  George,  Duke  of 
Saxony.  This  marriage  was  permitted  by  both  Luther  and 
Melanchthon.  Melanchthon  (who  was  present  at  the  mar- 
riage, March  3,  1540,)  fell  afterwards  into  a  terrible  state 
of  mind  on  account  of  this,  which  brought  him  to  the  brink 
of  the  grave.  Luther  thought  afterwards,  as  well  as  before, 
that  he  could  justify  this  permission  in  the  sight  of  God; 
but  his  opinion,  that  what  was  permitted  in  the  case  of  the 
patriarchs,  might  also  be  permitted  to  Christians  in  a  case 
of  extreme  necessity,  rested  upon  a  narrow  view  of  the 
difference  between  Christianity  and  the  Old  Testament 
religion.  * 

The  rabbi,  Dr.  Isidor  Kalisch  (died  May  9,  1886,  Neve- 
ark,  X.  J.),  one  of  the  most  gifted  and  energetic  advocates 
of  reform,  in  his  "Ancient  and  Modern  Judaism"  has  put  to- 
gether the  beliefs  of  modern  Judaism  in  ten  sections,  of 
which  the  third  is:  "  The  Mosaic  religion  is  capable  of  an 
endless  progress."  He  means  by  this  its  development  to  a 
universal  religion.  This  development  is  consummated  in 
the  fact  that  Christanity  has  come  from  the  bosom  of  Ju- 
daism. Reformed  Judaism  is  Christianity  without  Christ; 
it  is  a  light  \vhich  denies  the  sourer  of  light  from  which  it 
is  taken.  The  seventh  section  reads:  "Traditional  cere- 
monies and  customs,  whether  biblical  or  not  biblical,  must 
be  altered  and  even  abolished  as  soon  as  their  form  vio- 
lates the  ethics  or  the  feelings  of  modern  civilization." 


(l 


34  SOLEMN  QUESTIONS. 

This  is  a  thought  which  without  Christianity  could  never 
find  lodgement  in  a  Jewish  heart  or  utterance  from  a  Jew- 
ish mouth.  Among  these  customs  is  polygamy,  in  regard 
to  which  Christianity  antedated  Judaism  at  least  a  thous- 
and years  in  rejecting  it  as  a  matter  of  principle. 

In  another  point  also  it  is  shown  that  the  Mosaic  law 
is  not  a  direct  and  complete  revelation  of  God's  will.  The 
law  in  Deut.  24: 1-4  attempts  to  check  absolute  freedom  in 
divorce,  but  it  declares  that  the  husband  has  a  right  to  put 
away  his  wife  if  he  finds  her  in  anything  shameful.1  The 
extent  of  the  meaning  of  this  leaves  room  for  arbitrariness, 
and  has  caused  a  multitude  of  desertions  for  slight  reasons 
everywhere  where  the  Jewish  people  was  its  own  law  as  to 
marriage.  Was  Jesus  not  right  when  He  said  (Matt.  19:8) 
that  the  law  was  in  this  respect  far  behind  the  ideal  of 
marriage,  and  accommodated  itself  to  the  hard  hearts  of 
the'people?  Is,  then,  the  time  yet  so  far  off  when  Talmud- 
ical  Judaism  shall  cease  to  hate  Him,  and  Reformed  Juda- 
ism shall  begin  to  give  Him  honor? 


THE  ceremonial  sacrifices  came  to  an  end  together  with 
the  ceremonial  law.  As  circumcision  was  a  previously  ex- 
isting custom  outside  of  Israel  before  it  became,  by  divine 
revelation,  the  covenant  sign  of  the  people  descending  from 
Abraham,  so  also  was  sacrifice  the  chief  element  of  Gentile 
worship  before  the  Sinaitic  law  distinctly  marked  it  as  the 
'chief  element  in  the  worship  of  the  one  true  God.  With 
sacrifice,  however,  the  matter  stands  quite  otherwise  than 
with  circumcision.  Circumcision  arose  from  an  endeavor 
to  attain  bodily  purity,  but  as  a  means  to  this  end  it  was  a 
custom  only  among  a  few  nations.  But  sacrifices  are  found 
among  all  nations  who  possess  more  than  an  undefined 
knowledge  of  a  higher  Being.  There  is  a  religious  neces- 
sity which  urges  man  by  an  inward  need  to  offer  sacrifices. 
A  sacrifice  is,  according  to  its  fundamental  idea,  a  present 
or  a  gift.  It  is  an  offering,'-  as  was  that  of  Cain  and  Abel, 


l  nny  (l 
.nn:_    2 


SOLEMN  QUESTIONS.  3  = 

the  oldest  and  first  mentioned  in  the  Holy  Scriptures.  All 
that  man  possesses  he  has  from  God.  Be  can  give  nothing 
to  God  which  was  not  received  from  Him  before.  It  is  not 
possible  for  him  to  deny  himself  his  whole  possession;  that 
would  contradict  the  end  for  which  God  gave  it.  There- 
fore he  gives  Him  a  part,  in  order  by  this  self-denial  to 
attain  the  sanctification  and  blessing  of  the  whole  also, 
though  even  as  a  gift  the  sacrifice  has  a  mediatorial  signifi- 
cance. Man  lets  his  sacrifice  plead  for  God's  grace  in  his 
behalf,  just  as  Jacob  sent  beforehand  an  offering1  to  Esau 
to  induce  him  to  be  gracious.  So  man  lets  his  sacrifice 
step  in  as  a  third  term  between  himself  and  God,  that  it 
may  work  out  for  him  who  brings  it  God's  favor  and  good- 
will. In  this  sense  a  sacrifice  is,  even  now,  a  way  of  show- 
ing reverence  to  God.  It  is  a  sacrifice  to  make  an  altar 
covering,  or  a  painted  window,  or  any  holy  vessel  for  the 
hoXise  of  God,  or  to  render  it  beautiful  with  flowers. 

The  matter  stands,  however,  otherwise  with  the  bloody 
sacrifice,  or  the  offering  of  slain  beasts.  That  beasts  are 
to  be  slain  in  order  to  afford  enjoyment  to  God.  is  a  crude 
idea  which  has  place  in  heathendom,  because  they  have  a 
low  conception  of  divinity.  We  will,  however,  on  the  other 
hand,  leave  it  uncertain  whether  in  the  heathen  world  the 
offering  of  the  life  of  a  beast  availed  as  a  substitute  for  the 
offerer  who  deemed  himself  worthy  of  death.  It  is  enough 
that  there,  also,  the  idea  of  atonement,  or  the  appeasing  of 
divine  anger,  is  connected  with  a  bloody  sacrifice.  But  the 
Word  of  God  declares  how  the  blood  of  the  offerings 
brought  to  the  God  of  Israel  shall  be  understood;  for  it  is 
there  stated, -as  a  ground  for  the  prohibition  of  the  eating 
of  blood,  that  "the  life  of  the  flesh  is  in  the  blood,  and  I 
have  given  it  to  you  upon  the  altar  to  make  an  atonement 
for  your  souls;  for  it  is  the  blood  that  maketh  an  atone- 
ment for  the  soul."  Lev.  17:11.  That  the  soul  is  in  the 
blood  lies  in  the  nature  of  the  soul  and  of  the  blood.  But 
that  the  blood  of  beasts  is  a  means  of  atonement  does  not 
follow  from  the  nature  of  such  blood,  but  from  the  fact 


36  SOLEMN  QUESTIONS. 

that  God  has  allowed,  appointed  and  ordained  it1  for  this 
end.  It  expiates  by  virtue  of  the  soul  (or  life)  which  is  in  it; 
therefore  the  soul  (or  life)  of  the  beast  comes  in  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  the  soul  of  the  man,  to  make  an  atonement  for 
it;  that  is,  to  shield  it  from  God's  anger.  We  do  not  wish 
to  inquire  here  how  we  are  to  regard  this  substitution,  but 
this  much  remains  certain,  that  according  to  the  Sinaitic 
law  the  atonement  is  connected  with  blood,*  that  is  to  that 
blood  which  is  brought  to  the  altar,  poured  out  upon  it,  or 
sprinkled  on  the  horns  of  the  altar.  All  bloody  sacrifices, 
as  such,  possess  an  atoning  force.  Atonement  is  not  the 
chief  object  of  all  of  them,  but  always  and  everywhere 
must  the  application  of  the  blood  upon  the  altar  precede 
the  offering  of  the  sacrifice,  in  order  that  this  may  be  re- 
ceived as  the  gift  of  one  for  whom  atonement  has  been  made, 
that  is,  of  one  freed  from  guilt,  and  well  pleasing  to  God. 

If  the  matter  really  stands  thus,  that  for  Israel,  the 
people  of  the  law,  the  divinely-appointed  means  of  atone- 
ment was  found  in  the  blood  of  sacrifices,  it  may  be  asked 
what  means  of  atonement  has  taken  the  place  of  sacrificial 
blood  since  the  destruction  of  the  temple.  It  is  plain  that 
the  reading  of  the  chapter  enjoining  sacrifice  can  be  no 
substitute;  the  reading  of  a  prescription  cannot  take  the 
place  of  medicine  for  a  sick  person.  And  prayer,  repent- 
ance, and  fasting,3  could  not  avail  as  a  substitute,  since 
prayer,  repentance,  and  self-mortification  must  be  connect- 
ed with  sacrifices,  according  to  their  especial  object,  other- 
wise they  would  be  but  dead  works  without  a  corresponding 
inward  reality;  therefore  these  three  could  not  render 
sacrifices  superfluous.  But  one  will  object — was  not  the 
spiritual  worship  without  temple  and  sacrifice  a  matter  of 
necessity  during  the  seventy  years  of  the  Babylonian  cap- 
tivity? Certainly,  the  people  of  God  should  learn  by  this 
period  of  sojourn  in  a  strange  land,  that  the  essence  of  all 
religion  is  the  worship  of  God  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  The 


.v>nr:  a 

.013  »hx  rr>r:    .- 

3)  The  three  n's;  r\1Sr\,  prayer,  nrwn,  repentance,  and  n-:yn   fast- 
ing. 


SOLEMN  QUESTIONS.  37 

Lord  was  then  to  them  a  "little  sanctuary1  (Ezek  n:  16), 
t.  e.,  He  took  fora  time  the  place  of  the  temple,  He  shielded 
them  in  communion  with  Himself  as  "  in  his  pavilion,""  in 
the  time  of  trouble."  Psa.  27:5.  The  Exile  was  a  prepara- 
tory school  to  that  future  in  which  all  sacrifices,  except 
sacrifices  of  thanksgiving,  shall  come  to  an  end.2  See  Vay- 
yikra  ral>/>a,-ch.  9,  and  elsewhere.  But  if,  after  the  restora- 
tion of  sacrificial  worship  and  the  second  destruction  of 
the  temple,  it  is  now  to  be  thought  that  the  eighteen  hun- 
dred years  which  have  since  passed  by,  are  a  repeated 
preparation  for  the  Messianic  age, — is  the  conclusion  not 
to  be  drawn  from  the  length  of  this  period  that  the  time 
has  really  come  for  the  worship  of  God  in  spirit  and  in 
truth,  although  not  recognized  by  that  people  for  whom 
it  was  especially  intended? 

In  the  Prophets  and  the  Psalms  the  ceremonial  offering 
is  mostly  understood  as  the  symbol  of  a  spiritual  offering, 
principally  the  offering  of  one's  self,  without  which  and  in 
comparison  with  which  the  ceremonial  offering  is  worth- 
less, e.g.,'Mica.h  6:6-8,  and  Psa.  50.  But  there  is  also  kept 
in  view  the  self-sacrifice  of  a  Servant  of  God  which  has  a 
relation  to  the  ceremonial  offerings  and  to  what  they  ac- 
complish according  to  God's  command,  which  is  that  of  an- 
titype to  type.  The  Servant  of  God,  depicted  in  Isaiah  52: 
13  to  53:  12,  offers  Himself  as  a  sacrifice3  for  the  sins  of  His 
people.  His  chastisement  accomplishes  their  peace,  and 
His  wounds  bring  them  healing.  He,  the  Righteous  One, 
accomplishes  a  righteousness  which  proceeds  from  the  sins 
for  which  He  makes  atonement.  And  Zechariah,  after 
prophesying  (Zech.  12,)  that  the  Jewish  people  one  day  will 
look  with  repentance  and  longing  upon  the  great  Pierced 
One,  whose  piercing  the  Lord  considers  as  a  deed  of  blood 
inflicted  upon  Himself,4  goes  on  to  say  :  "  In  that  day  there 
shall  be  a  fountain  opened  to  the  house  of  David  and  to  the 


(1 

mm  pipi  p^ea  nuaipn  ^3  xsS  Tnjr1?  (2 

.owx  (3 
npn  -,WK  nx  ^x  'E-ani  (4 


38  SOLEMN   QUESTIONS. 

inhabitants  of  Jerusalem  for  sin  and  for  uncleanness."  Zech 
13:  i.  Therefore,  if  the  people  will  recognize  their  offense 
against  that  Pierced  One  with  penitent  grief,  it  will  then 
be  of  no  avail  to  doubt  that  a  fountain  is  opened  out  of 
which  flows  water  which  purifies  from  guilt  and  impurity 
These  are  prophetic  words  of  such  clearness  that  no  one 
who  connects  them  with  what  the  gospels  relate  can  silence 
his  conscience  by  explaining  them  away,  even  by  dint  of 
the  most  skillful  exegesis. 

It  cannot  occur  to  any  one  to  deny  that  the  great 
Pierced  One  is  an  individual  person.  A  collective  person, 
ality  cannot  be  there  meant,  but  One,  namely,  Israel's  Sav- 
iour, as  is  evident  from  Zech.  13:1;  for  His  death,  misun- 
derstood as  to  its  basis  and  purpose,  becomes  a  source  of 
salvation.  But  by  the  Servant  of  the  Lord  mentioned  in 
Isaiah  52:  13  to  53: 12,  many  understand  a  plural  number. 
The  Tenth  section  of  the  Confession  of  Faith  constructed 
by  Isidor  Kalisch  declares  :  "  Israel's  holy  calling  is  to  be- 
come the  saving  Messiah  of  humanity."  But  that  Servant 
of  the  Lord  offers  Himself  for  His  people,  and  that  the 
whole  body  of  a  people  should  offer  themselves  for  the 
whole  body  of  a  people  is  an  inconsistency,  is  a  self-contra- 
diction. If  the  idea  of  the  Servant  of  the  Lord  be,  never- 
theless, a  collective  idea,  then,  in  distinction  from  the  mass 
of  the  people,  the  whole  body  must  be  understood  of  those 
who  make  every  effort,  and  risk  everything,  in  order  to 
free  their  people  from  inward  and  outward  misery,  although 
misunderstood  by  them  in  narrow  blindness.  But  at  the 
same  time  it  is  very  natural  that  in  this  whole  body  of  the 
true  servants  of  the  Lord  one  should  tower  above  others, 
and  that  One  should  outrank  all  of  them.  Should  not  Jesus 
be  this  incomparable  One?  Countless  Israelites  have  been 
conquered  inwardly  by  this  prophetic  picture  of  the  future, 
for  the  prophet  here  depicts  the  Crucified  One1  as  though 
He  stood  under  the  cross.  "  That  is  from,  the  New  Testa- 
ment, not  from  the  Old!  "  cried  one,  as  the  53d  chapter  of 
Isaiah  was  read  to  him.  And  when  he  was  convinced  of 

y-.-  .1 


SOLEMN     QUESTIONS.  3$ 

the  contrary  he  resisted  the  blinding  light,  not  hesitating 
to  say,  "  Then  Isaiah  went  too  far!  " 


BUT  why  do  we  then  need  a  Mediator? — is  the  query 
many  a  reader  will  here  interject.  Everywhere  in  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  whether  in  the  Psalms  or  elsewhere,  when 
prayer  is  offered  for  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  the  petition  is 
offered  directly  to  the  Holy  One — Blessed  be  He! — to  Him 
who  has  revealed  Himself  as  "  tne  Lord  God,  merciful  and 
gracious,  long-suffering,  and  abundant  in  goodness  and 
truth,  keeping  mercy  for  thousands,  forgiving  iniquity  and 
transgression  and  sin"  (Ex.  34:6,  7);  to  Rim  whom  praising, 
the  psalmist  thus  calls  upon  his  own  soul,  "  Bless  the  Lord, 
O  my  soul,  and  all  that  is  within  me  bless  his  holy  name 
Bless  the  Lord,  O  my  soul,  and  forget  not  all  his  benefits; 
who  forgiveth  all  thine  iniquities;  who  healeth  all  thy  dis- 
eases; who  redeemeth  thy  life  from  destruction;  who 
crowneth  thee  with  loving-kindness  and  tender  mercies." 
Psa.  103:  1-4.  On  the  other  hand,  we  read,  "  If  thou,  Lord, 
shouldst  mark  iniquities,  O  Lord,  who  shall  stand?"  Psa. 
139:  3  But  the  suppliant  knows  that  God  suffers  mercy  to 
come  upon  us  instead  of  justice,  and  he  confirms  this  when 
he  continues,  "  But  there  is  forgiveness  with  thee,  that  thou 
mayest  be  feared  "  (Psa.  130:4),  that  is,  "Because  thou  wilt 
be  honored  thankfully,  thou  forgivest  willingly  and  richly." 

Why  then  do  we  need  a  Mediator?  In  the  book  of  Isa- 
iah we  read  this  saving  command,  "  Let  the  wicked  forsake 
his  way,  and  the  unrighteous  man  his  thoughts,  and  let 
him  return  unto  the  Lord,  and  He  will  have  mercy  upon 
him;  and  to  our  God,  for  He  will  abundantly  pardon."  Isa. 
55:7.  But  there  is  even  here  also  the  mention  of  a  Media- 
tor, whom  the  Israel  of  the  future  will  acknowledge.  "  The 
chastisement  of  our  peace  was  upon  him,  and  with  his 
stripes  we  are  healed."  Isa.  53:  5.  It  will,  therefore,  be  no 
contradiction  that  we  read  in  one  place,  "  I,  even  I,  am  he 
that  blotteth  out  thy  transgressions  for  mine  own  sake  " 
(Isa.  43:  25),  and  in  another  place,  "  By  his  knowledge  shall 
my  righteous  servant  justfy  many;  for  he  shall  bear  their 
iniquities."  Isa.  55:  n. 


40  SOLEMN   QUESTIONS. 

Still  one  will  always  be  able  to  object  that  the  fif.ty. 
third  chapter  of  the  book  of  Isaiah  is,  nevertheless,  isolat- 
ed, and  a  doctrine  peculiar  to  the  second  part  of  the  book 
of  Isaiah  can  prove  nothing  against  the  many  other  holy 
books  of  the  Old  Testament.  Everywhere  else  it  is  God 
Himself  who  takes  away  sins  and  blots  them  out  and  cov- 
ers and  forgives  them,  He  alone  and  for  His  own  sake,  of 
free  grace,  pure  and  absolute.  We  would  be  treating  the 
evidences  for  the  truth  of  Christianity  too  lightly  if  we 
ignored  the  importance  of  these  objections.  But  the  right 
answer  will,  at  the  same  time,  put  in  the  right  light  that 
Christian  doctrine  which  is  the  especial  stone  of  stumbling 
for  Judaism,  the  doctrine  of  the  trinity  of  the  Godhead.  It 
is  by  no  means  so  difficult  to  understand  that  God  and  His 
Holy  Spirit  are  to  be  discriminated,  and  in  such  a  manner, 
indeed,  that  the  latter  is  not  a  blind  working  force,  but  an 
Energy  proceeding  from  God,  who  dwells  in  the  divine 
consciousness.  But  that  Christ  is  God  and  man  in  one 
person,  that  is  what,  from  the  Jewish  point  of  view,  is  re- 
garded as  inconsistent  with  the  unity  of  God,  while  it  is 
also  by  us  held  to  be  the  fundamental  dogma  of  all  true 
religion. 

It  is  not  merely  a  characteristic  of  the  religion  of  rev- 
elation that  in  contrast  with  paganism  it  consists  of  the 
teaching  concerning  the  one  God  and  His  attributes  in 
Himself  and  in  relation  to  His  creatures.  It  is  more  than 
that.  It  is  the  knowledge  obtained  through  divine  witnesses 
in  word  and  deed,  concerning  an  eternal  decree  of  God  to 
redeem  humanity  ruined  in  sin,  and  concerning  the  means 
which  He  has  established  in  order  to  accomplish  this  re- 
demption. Through  sin  man  has  become  far  from  God, 
and  God  far  from  man.  It  is  a  fundamental  postulate  of 
the  revealed  religion  that  God,  in  order  to  bring  back  men 
from  their  condition  of  separation  from  God,  and  lift  them 
tip  from  the  depth  of  their  ruin,  must  personally,  through 
His  own  absolute  presence,  enter  into  their  present  human 
history.  In  the  very  first  pages  of  the  Bible  we  read  that 
after  the  fall  of  man  He  personally  appeared  to  him  and 
comforted  him  in  the  midst  of  his  condemnation  with  the 


SOLEMN     QUESTIONS.  41 

prophecy  of  victory  over  the  serpent.  And  the  last  pro- 
phetic voice  declares,  "  The  Lord,  whom  ye  seek,  shall  sud- 
denly come  to  his  temple."  Mai.  3:  i.  From  Obadiah  (v.  15) 
on,  the  watchword  of  all  the  prophets  is,  "  The  day  of  the 
Lord  is  near,"  the  day  in  which  He  will  reveal  Himself  as 
Judge  and  Redeemer  in  unveiled  grandeur.  He  appears 
chiefly  as  the  Redeemer  of  Israel,  for  after  mankind  had 
been  separated  into  nations  the  assuranceof  the  theophany 
(divine  appearance)  received  a  national  coloring.  The 
Lord,  Israel's  God,  will  come  and  make  Himself  known  ac- 
cording to  His  promise.  It  is  the  deepest  longing  of  the 
people  of  the  old  covenant  which  finds  expression  in  Isaiah 
64:  i,  liOh  that  thou  wouldst  rend  the  heavens,  that  thou 
wouldst  come  down,"  and  the  similar  expression  of  hope  is 
seen  in  Psa.  50:  3,  "  Our  God  shall  come."  And  all  creatures 
which  surround  men  are  called  upon  (Psa.  96:  n  ff;  98:7  ff) 
to  exult  with  them  at  the  approach  of  the  Coming  One. 

But  if  God  is  to  appear  historically,  and  that  in  such  a 
manner  that  He  not  only  talks  with  one  man,  as  from  the 
pillar  of  cloud  He  talked  with  Moses  at  the  giving  of  the 
law,  but  also  in  such  a  manner  that  He  comes  into  an  inti- 
mate relation  with  men;  then  it  cannot  be  otherwise  than 
that  He  should  make  a  man  the  abode  of  His  presence,  the 
instrument  of  His  thoughts  and  words,  and  the  fulfiller 
of  His  promise.  It  could  not  well  be  otherwise.  And  to 
this  which  could  not  possibly  be  otherwise  the  Scripture 
witnesses  as  a  reality.  "As  the  Angel  of  the  Lord  said,  "  I 
am  the  God  of  thy  father,  the  God  of  Abraham,  the  God' 
Isaac,  and  the  God  of  Jacob  "  (Ex.  3:  6),  because  the  God  of 
the  patriarchs  made  him  the  means  of  attesting  His  own 
presence;  so  also  the  Virgin's  Son,  in  whose  birth  Isaiah 
exults,  is  the  bodily  presence  of  the  Mighty  God,  rich  in 
salvation,  and  the  BRANCH1  of  David  is  called  the  "  LORD 
OUR  RIGHTEOUSNESS"*  (Jer.  23:6),  because,  as  ap- 
pears from  a  comparison  with  Jer.  33:16,  the  Lord,  as  the 
Justifier  and  Sanctifier  of  His  people  dwells  in  His  per- 


(1 
>•  nvr  (2 


42  SOLEMN   QUESTIONS. 

son  as  He  dwells  in  the  New  Jerusalem.  In  Zech.  13:7 
God  calls  Him  "the  man  that  is  my  fellow,"  and  this  fel- 
lowship is  so  intimate  that  in  Zech.  12:  10  He  identifies  Him 
with  Himself.  The  fellowship  of  God  with  His  prophet  is 
already  so  intimate  that  in  the  prophetic  books  the  "  I  "  of 
God  and  the  "  I  "  of  the  prophet  are  exchanged  one  for  the 
other;  but  the  fellowship  of  God  with  His  Messiah,  or  with 
the  Servant  of  the  Lord  and  the  Angel  of  the  covenant, 
who  are  prophesied  in  the  books  of  Isaiah  and  Malachi, 
must  be  considered  as  a  fellowship  still  more  intimate. 
Whether  the  union  of  God  with  Him  is  capable  of  dogmat- 
ic definition,  and  how  it  is  to  be  defined,  is  here  beside  our 
purpose  to  discuss. 

The  words  of  the  dying  Jacob,  "  I  have  waited  for  thy 
salvation,  O  Lord  "  (Gen.  49:  18),  remain  from  the  begin- 
ning to  the  end  of  the  Old  Testament  period  the  unchanged 
confession  of  faith.  Salvation  is  of  God,  the  Lord,  who  has 
established  the  decree  of  salvation,  and  Himself  also  real- 
izes it.  Redemption  from  sin  and  its  consequences,  this 
radical  redemption,  over  against  which  every  other  is  but 
a  fleeting  shadow,  is  everywhere  indicated  in  the  Holy 
Scriptures  as  the  work  of  God  Himself.  That  there  is  a 
human  mediation  in  this  personal  work  of  God  is  intimated 
in  Gen.  3: 15,  and  one  cannot  think  otherwise  in  view  of 
this  passage;  and  furthermore,  the  angels  who  take  part 
in  the  sacred  narrative  appear  in  human  form  and  speak 
with  the  human  voice.  But  the  acknowledgment  of  a  hu- 
man mediator,  far  from  being  always  the  same,  has  its  pro- 
gressive history.  The  idea  of  the  Messiah  under  the  figure 
of  a  King,  is  unsuited  to  represent  the  Mediator  in  a  re- 
demption from  sin  and  its  consequences.  Even  in  the  fig- 
ure of  a  King  in  whom  God  dwells,  the  divine  King,  the 
work  of  the  expiation  and  cleansing  of  sin  is  not  found; 
therefore  the  incomplete  figure  of  a  king  becomes  enlarged 
in  the  later  prophetic  writings  (Isa.  chapters  40  to  66,  Zech. 
9  to  14,  Mai.  3,)  to  the  three-fold  figure  of  the  prophetic 
declaration  of  truth,  the  priestly  offering  of  Himself,  and 
a  more  than  royal  majesty.  This  future  Mediator,  who 
is  Prophet,  Priest,  and  King,  in  one  person,  and  in  whom 


SOLEMN   QUESTIONS.  43 

the  Lord  comes  to  His  people  (Isa.  50:2),  yea,  who,  accord- 
ing to  Mai.  3:  i  is  the  Lord1  Himself,  God  calls  T<yrc\  Isa 
49:6.  The  joyous  message  of  His  coming  to  the  daughter 
of  Zion  is  in  Isa.  62:  n,  ,S2  iw  run.  That  sounds  like: 
"See,  thy  Jesus  cometh." 

This  Jesus  has  said  of  Himself,  "  All  things  are  de- 
livered unto  me  of  my  Father;  and  no  man  knoweth  the 
Son  but  the  Father;  neither  knoweth  any  man  the  Father 
save  the  Son,  and  he  to  whomsoever  the  Son  will  reveal 
him."  Matt.  11:27.  With  this  agrees  what  he  says  in  John 
14:  9,  10,  "  He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father,"  etc. 
Never  did  a  man  dare  say  such  a  thing  of  himself.  He  is 
in  the  Father  and  the  Father  in  Him;  He  is  the  visible  rep- 
resentative of  God  Himself.  As  a  human  being  He  had, 
as  we  all  have,  a  temporal  beginning;  but  the  Eternal  God 
is  so  united  with  Him  that  our  redemption  which  is  wrought  • 
in  His  sacrificial  death,  is,  nevertheless,  the  work  of  God 
Himself,  as  Paul  says  in  2  Cor.  5:  19,  "God  was  in  Christ 
reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself."  This  is  a  mystery 
into  which  the  angels  desire  to  look,  and  after  the  right 
apprehension  of  which  thoughtful  believers  have  striven 
since  the  beginning  of  the  church.  When  once  Israel  has 
recognized  in  this  Jesus  the  Messiah,  then  will  it  assist  in 
promoting  a  fruitful  understanding  of  this  unfathomable 
mystery. 


THE  religion  of  the  New  Testament  contains  nothing 
the  foundation  of  which  was  not  laid  as  a  preparation  in 
the  Word  of  God  in  the  Old  Testament.  When  Paul  says 
of  Jesus  (Rom.  4:  25,)  that  He  was  delivered  for  our  offenses 
and  was  raised  again  for  our  justification,  it  is  essentially 
the  same  as  what  was  said  of  the  Servant  of  the  Lord  in 
the  53d  chapter  of  Isaiah.  For  of  Him  who,  according  to 
God's  economy,  offered  Himself  for  His  people,  Israel  con- 
fesses, as  believing  in  the  great  wounded  Sufferer,  "  The 
chastisement  of  our  peace  was  upon  him,  and  with  his 
stripes  we  are  healed."  And  even  the  Lord,  who  took  Him 

(l 


44  SOLEMN  QUESTIONS. 

to  Himself  from  agony  and  judgment,  says  of  Him  who 
was  taken  away  and  lifted  up  by  his  persecutors,  "  By  his 
knowledge  shall  my  righteous  Servant  justify  many,  for 
he  shall  bear  their  iniquities."  So  then,  the  Servant  of  the 
Lord  willingly  went  to  his  death  in  order  to  atone  for  our 
sins,  and  even  through  death  He  was  exalted  of  God  whose 
decree  He  had  fulfilled  in  order  to  procure  for  many,  f.  <?., 
as  many  as  believe  on  Him,  a  righteousness  which  will 
avail  before  God,  which  rests  upon  the  atonement  wrought 
by  means  of  Himself.  Christianity  does  not  necessitate  to 
.the  Israelite  new  and  strange  modes  of  thought,  but  only 
this  one  new  thought,  that  the  prophetic  word  in  the  Old 
Testament  has  come  to  a  full  realization  in  the  crucified 
and  risen  Jesus. 

But  how  is  it  to  be  thought  possible  that  from  the  vol- 
untary sufferings  and  death  of  a  man,  atonement,  justifica- 
tion, and  righteousness,  accrue  to  those  for  whom  He  takes 
this  suffering  and  death  upon  Himself  ?  We  will,  for  the 
moment,  leave  it  uncertain  whether  the  Servant  of  the 
Lord,  portrayed  in  Isaiah  52:  13  to  53:  12  is  one  person  or  a 
plural  number;  in  either  case  Israel  there  confesses  that 
salvation  and  righteousness  is  wrought  for  them  all 
through  the  vicarious  suffering  and  death  of  One  who  was 
long  unrecognized,  and  at  last  fully  acknowledged.  How 
are  these  to  be  mentally  connected? 

Perhaps  the  following  story  is  not  inapt  to  afford  an 
approach  to  an  insight  into  the  matter.  I  have  it  from 
Hesba  Stretton,  the  English  story-writer,  who  has  also 
written  many  other  stories  from  which  are  made  manifest 
the  ethical  grandeur  and  moral  value  of  vicarious  suffer- 
ing and  death.  The  scene  of  the  story  which  I  just  now 
recall,  is  a  greut  London  court,  in  which  a  countless  number 
of  people  lived  thickly  huddled  together,  for  the  most  part 
poor  and  morally  degraded.  The  steward  of  the  house 
maintained  strict  government,  but  he  was  himself  a  rough, 
unbelieving  man.  A  faithful  and  zealous  missionary  had 
for  a  long  time  left  no  means  untried  in  order  to  bring  the 
light  of  the  gospel  to  this  benighted  multitude.  Ris  cour- 


SOLEMN  QUESTIONS.  45 

age  and  loving  tact  were  exhausted,  when  his  son,  a  gentle 
lad,  who  was  gifted  with  a  lovely  voice,  offered  to  go  into 
the  court  and  to  endeavor  to  touch  the  hearts  of  the  inhab- 
itants and  melt  them  by  striking  up  some  religious  songs. 
The  father  knew  to  what  danger  his  child  exposed  himself, 
but  because  the  salvation  of  men  was  to  him  more  than  all 
else,  he  yielded  at  last  to  the  impulse.  The  boy  went  day 
after  day,  took  his  station  in  the  middle  of  the  court,  and, 
with  a  voice  as  clear  as  a  bell,  in  which  his  very  soul  was 
felt,  began  his  songs  of  Jesus.  At  first  there  gathered 
about  him  a  great  crowd,  drawn  thither  by  the  strange 
sight  and  the  enjoyment  of  the  music.  But  little  by  little, 
as  they  perceived  the  intention  of  his  coming,  they  with- 
drew, and  finally  their  applause  turned  to  hatred,  which 
increased  to  such  a  pitch  that  at  last  the  troublesome  sing- 
er, struck  by  a  stone  from  the  hand  of  the  steward,  sank 
to  the  ground  and  was  carried  away  as  one  dying.  He  was 
not  really  so  greatly  injured  as  to  die,  but  he  was  in  immi- 
nent danger  of  death,  and  this  danger  was  enhanced  by 
his  deep  sorrow  of  soul  on  account  of  the  failure  of  his 
good  intention  and  the  rejection  of  nis  kind  wish.  But 
how  salutary  was  the  fruit  already  borne  by  this  sacrifice 
of  self  almost  to  death!  Certainly  it  did  not  avail  for  all 
without  distinction,  but  for  all  those  who  examined  them- 
selves in  the  presence  of  this  noble  young  life  all  but  de- 
stroyed. The  first  fruit  was  this:  From  the  deadly  hatred 
with  which  they  had  requited  that  love  whose  wish  was  to 
save  them  from  their  depravity,  they  came  to  the  conscious- 
ness of  their  guilt  in  all  its  terrible  enormity  and  worthi- 
ness of  condemnation.  The  second  fruit  was  found  in  this: 
That  in  the  bleeding  head  and  pale  face  of  the  sufferer 
they  had  before  them  a  picture  of  innocence  able  and  will- 
ing to  otfer  itself  a  sacrifice  for  the  guilty,  an  image  of  di- 
vine love  which  seeks  the  lost,  and  a  view  of  that  true 
righteousness,  the  essence  of  which  is  unselfish  love.  And 
a  third  fruit  was  this:  That  in  remorseful  self -blame  they 
cried  to  God  that  He  might  not  let  the  work  of  this  long- 
ing, self-sacrificing  love,  remain  unavailing  toward  them, 
and  that  He  would  make  them  partake  of  the  righteous- 


40  SOLEMN  QUESTIONS. 

ness  of  this  just  one  against  whom  they  had  so  grievously 
sinned. 

And  now  we  ascend  from  the  lower  to  the  higher,  from 
the  comparison  to  the  Incomparable  One;  from  this  youth- 
ful minstrel  whose  confession  was  a  note  from  the  many 
thousand-voiced  choir  of  believers  in  every  age  to  that 
Servant  of  the  Lord  whose  very  person  signifies  the  salva- 
tion of  mankind;  for  the  Lord  says  of  Him,  "  Behold  my 
servant,  whom  I  uphold;  mine  elect,  in  whom  my  soul  de- 
lighteth;  I  have  put  my  Spirit  upon  him:  he  shall  bring 
forth  judgment  to  the  Gentiles."  Isa.  42:  i.  We  turn  from 
this  youth,  whom  sympathy  induced  to  rescue  the  dwellers 
of  a  neighboring  house  from  their  estrangement  from  God, 
to  that  Servant  of  the  Lord  who  was  decreed  to  become 
the  salvation  of  the  world  throughout  its  utmost  extent 
(Isa.  49: 6),  and  who  accomplished  this  work  as  Saviour 
with  a  loving  tenderness  which  would  not  break  the  bruised 
reed  nor  quench  the  smoking  flax.  Isa.  42:3.  We  arise  in 
thought  from  this  child,  whose  zealous  testimony  brought 
upon  him  an  illness  of  perhaps  a  month,  to  that  Servant  of 
the  Lord,  "a  man  of  sorrows  and  acquainted  with  grief," 
whose  whole  life  was  marked  by  sympathetic  suffering, 
and  ever  full  of  anguish;  from  this  child  whose  ardent 
love  brought  him  near  death,  to  that  Servant  of  the  Lord, 
that  Pierced  and  Bruised  One  who  was  led  as  a  tender 
lamb  to  the  slaughter  (1^:1.53:5-7);  from  this  sick  child 
around  whose  couch,  conscious  of  guilt,  stand  the  inmates 
of  the  premises,  and  even  the  house  steward,  to  that  Ser- 
vant of  the  Lord  in  whose  presence  an  entire  great  nation 
confess  their  blindness  and  their  sins,  through  which 
they  have  caused  his  martyr  death.  From  this  we  gain  an 
insight  into  the  moral  consequences  of  the  self-sacrifice  of 
the  incomparable  Sufferer.  In  Him  it  may  be  seen  of  what 
sin  is  capable;  it  outdid  itself  when  it  put  to  death  the 
Holy  One  of  God  as  a  common  malefactor.  His  death  is  a 
rful  sermon  on  repentance.  In  Him  it  is  shown  of 
what  zeal  for  the  law  is  capable;  for  it  was  the  people  of 
the  law  who,from  the  stand-point  of  the  law,  like  the  friends 
of  Job,  considered  him  rejected  of  God,  and  in  fanatical 


SOLEMN     QUESTIONS.  47 

devotion  to  the  law,  dragged  him  to  the  judgment-seat. 
In  Him  it  is  to  be  seen  of  what  love  is  capable;  for  the  in- 
tensity of  His  love  toward  those  who  hated  Him  consumed 
His  life,  and  even  when  dying  He  still  implored  forgive, 
ness  for  the  evil  doers.  Isa.  53:12.  But  this  love  stood  in 
the  place  of  heavenly  love,  for  it  was  God's  will  to  bruise 
Him,  and  it  was  God  Himself  who  caused  Him  to  sink  in 
such  grief.'  His  suffering  was  the  means  to  a  fore-ordained 
end.  His  self-sacrifice  was  to  become  the  ground  of  His 
exaltation,  and  the  foundation  of  a  great  congregation  who 
should  give  Him  thanks  for  their  redemption  and  justifi- 
cation. Isa.  53: 10,  ii.  The  depth  of  theijr  iniquity  was  re- 
vealed when  they  shed  the  blood  of  God's  Chosen  One;  and 
at  the  same  time  in  that  God-ordained,  self-sacrificing  love 
there  was  offered  to  the  sinners  a  saving  hand  which 
brought  to  those  who  seized  it  in  faith  forgiveness  and 
mercy,  and  the  gracious  power  to  begin  a  new  life.  So  we 
see  that  through  the  work  of  the  Servant  of  God,  which, 
suffering,  dying,  and  living  again,  He  accomplishes,  there 
is  wroughtf  or  sinners  the  knowledge  of  themselves  (repent- 
ance), the  forgiveness  of  sins  (justification),  and  anew  life, 
well  pleasing  to  God  (righteousness). 

"Yes,"  one  will  object,  "but  all  that  sounds  exactly 
like  Christianity."  Without  doubt  it  is  exactly  like  Chris- 
tianity, and  yet  we  have  been  especially  careful  not  to  go 
outside  the  thoughts  directly  or  implicitly  contained  in  the 
53d  chapter  of  Isaiah.  The  Messiah,  according  to  an  older 
conception,  is  a  king.  But,  as  in  Psa.  no,  Zechariah  gives 
to  the  Branch  the  priestly  crown  in  addition  to  his  crown 
asking.  And  to  these  two  crowns  there  is  added  by"  the 
second  Isaiah  and  Zechariah  the  crown  of  thorns  which 
God  transforms  into  a  more  than  royal  crown.  The  pict- 
ure of  Christ  on  the  easel  of  prophecy  was  now  ready,  and 
there  remained  nothing  except  that  the  one  there  por- 
trayed should  ap*pear,  and  that  the  finger  of  him  who  stood 
as  the  last  of  the  prophets  upon  the  confines  of  the  two 
great  ages  of  the  world  should  point  to  Him  and  say,- 


nvri 


48  SOLEMN*  QUESTIONS. 

"Behold   the  Lamb  of  God  which   taketh  away  the  sin  oi 
the  world!  " 


HITHERTO  we  have  drawn  our  proofs  of  the  fundamen- 
tal facts  and  truths  of  Christianity  exclusively  from  a  com- 
parison of  them  with  the  Holy  Scriptures  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament. Now  we  turn  our  glances  toward  the  Haggada 
contained  in  the  Talmud  and  Midrash,  the  evidential  value 
of  which  ought  not  to  be  underestimated.  The  strictest 
followers  of  the  Talmud  view  the  Haggada,  in  its  relation 
to  the  Halacha,  which  fixes  the  sense  of  the  law,  as  a  purely 
subjective  and  fanciful  conceit.  Yet,  nevertheless,  even 
these  seize  upon  the  Haggada,  whenever  it  is  of  value  to 
show  that,  far  higher  than  the  crude  and  early  determina- 
tion of  justice  limited  to  the  Jewish  nation,  there  is  a  hu- 
mane ethics  in  accordance  with  which  noble  Israelites  have 
at  all  times  acted.  For  example,  in  the  Shulchan  Aruch  it  is 
stated  as  an  accepted  proposition  of  right  and  duty  for  the 
Israelite  to  keep  the  lost  property  of  a  Gentile  and  not  to 
give  it  back;  but  the  Haggada  commends  a  practice  far 
above  this  unjust  proposition,  and  relates  that  the  disciples 
of  Simeon  ben  Shetach  bought  for  their  master,  who  sup- 
ported himself  by  flax-combing,  an  ass,  on  whose  neck  they 
found  hanging  a  pearl.  "  Now,"  said  they,  "thou  needest 
no  longer  to  worry."  "But,"  said  he,  "doth  the  owner 
know  of  it? "  And  when  they  said  that  he  did  not,  he  replied, 
"  Go,  then,  and  restore  it  to  him."  Jer.  Mezia,  2:  5.  The 
Haggada  is  full  of  ethical  maxims  and  examples  which 
break  through  the  letter  of  the  written  law  and  the  conse- 
quences of  the  traditional  law,  and  touch  the  spirit  of 
Christianity  and  its  universal  and  humane  morality.  Ac- 
cordingly we  read  (Joma  23  a,  etc.),  "  Those  who  allow  them- 
selves to  be  injured  and  injure  not  in  return,  those  who  al- 
low themselves  to  be  abused  and  abuse  not  in  return,  who 
act  from  love,  and  rejoice  in  suffering,  of  them  saith  the 
Scripture,  '  Let  them  that  love  him  be  as  the  sun  when  he 
goeth  forth  in  his  might.'  "'  Such  sayings,  which  harmon- 
ize with  the  declarations  of  the  primitive  Christian  rec- 

i)  Judges  5:  31. 


SOLEMN     QUESTIONS.  49 

ords,  are  often  found  in  the  Talmud  and  Midrash,  and  how 
often  have  they  been  offset  by  mediaeval  fanaticism  and 
anti-Semitism!  Far  from  lacking  evidential  force,  the 
Haggada  is  brought  forward  even  at  the  present  day  by 
the  defenders  of  the  Talmud  and  Shulchan  Aruch,  as  a  classic 
witness  to  save  the  honor  of  the  nation,  and  not  alone  for 
this  end,  but  also  to  take  away  from  Christianity  and  its 
great  universal  thoughts  their  priority,  by  referring  to  the 
religio-ethical  maxims,  which,  like  pearls  in  a  jeweler's 
shop,  are  scattered  partly  in  the  tract  Aboth,  and  elsewhere 
throughout  the  Talmudic  literature.  We  do  not  wish  here 
to  dispute  about  this,  but  we  content  ourselves  with  the 
remark  that,  with  the  exception  of  a  very  few  declarations, 
all  these  parallels  to  the  New  Testament  are  later  than  the 
first  Christian  century,  and,  therefore,  if  original  and  in- 
dependent, they  yet  follow  chronologically.  ^H^ 

But  they  reason  unjustly,  and  employ  an  inconsistent 
mode  of  argument,  who,  with  a  proud  self-consciousness, 
exalt  those  parts  of  the  Talmud  and  Midrash  which  har- 
monize with  Christian  ethics,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  dis- 
parage those  portions  which  agree  with  the  Christian  doc- 
trine, as  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  Judaism,  and  as  having 
come  in  through  yielding  to  Christian  influence.  Nathan 
Krochmal,  in  his  More  Nebuche  Hazeman,  who  otherwise 
finds  sense  and  reason  throughout  the  Haggada,  condemns 
these  parts  as  mystical  transcendentalism.  There  is  a  He- 
brew pamphlet  entitled  hivw1  n^V  whose  author  has  cast  a 
superficial  glance  at  Church  History,  and  views  these  Hag- 
gadas  as  the  mire  of  Christian  doctrine  deposited  in  the 
Talmud  and  Midrash  since  the  Council  of  Nice,  A.  D.  325. 
Freer  from  blame  is  a  work  on  this  point  by  Rabbi  Schwartz, 
in  Gablonz,  which  lies  before  me  in  manuscript.  It  sets 
out  from  the  proposition  that  since  the  Talmudic  period 
there  arose  within  Judaism  a  two-fold  tendency,  one  mys- 
tical and  one  rationalistic.  That  is  just.  The  rationalistic 
tendency  viewed  a  strict  observance  of  the  law  which  jus- 
tines  and  saves,  as  the  principal  thing  for  the  present,  and 


i)  The  Glory  of  Israel. 


50  SOLEMN  QUESTIONS. 

all  the  future,  and  allowed  to  the  Prophetic  Word  almost 
no  influence  upon  its  thought.  The  Messiah,  if  it  to  any 
extent  held  fast  to  a  belief  in  a  future  Messiah,  was,  in  its 
view,  a  king  who  should  adhere  to  the  law  and  secure  for 
it  a  universal  force.  The  difference  between  the  present 
and  the  Messianic  future  was  considered  simply  as  this, 
that  at  some  time  the  nvp^B  T3JW,  that  is,  Israel's  servitude 
beneath  the  Gentile  world-power,  would  cease.  Maimon- 
ides,  the  later  representative  of  this  rationalistic  tendency, 
embodied  the  Messianic  conception,  rather  political  than 
ethical,  into  his  system  of  Talmudic  law.  The  mystical 
tendency,  on  the  contrary,  hoped  in  the  Messiah  a  restorer 
of  what  was  lost  through  Adam  in  the  fall,  a  conqueror 
of  the  serpent,  the  mediator  of  an  eternal  redemption,  and 
the  re-entering  of  God  into  human  history.  Its  Messianic 
idea  was  not  merely  an  impression  from  without  upon  the 
longing  for  freedom,  but  \vas  drawn  from  the  sense  of  sin 
and  guilt  within.  It  is  this  conception  of  the  Messiah 
which  floated  before  Jesus,  and  upon  the  realization  of 
which  He  wasted  and  sacrificed  His  life.  He  did  not  cre- 
ate it,  but  only  transferred  it  from  an  ideal  into  a  reality. 
Although  it  does  not  appear  in  the  Jewish  literature  just 
preceding  Christianity,  and  although  Jesus'  disciples  only 
gradually  deepened  their  external  and  rationalistic  view 
of  the  Messiah  to  this  inward  mystical  and  spiritual  con- 
ception, yet  still  the  Raggada  of  the  Talmud  and  Midrash 
prove  that  it  was  nothing  new  and  foreign  to  the  Jewish 
consciousness.  Even  if  not  national,  it  was  by  no  means 
without  foundation;  for  the  Word  of  God  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament gave  it  its  characteristic  features  and  color. 

In  the  idyllic  picture  in  the  nth  chapter  of  Isaiah, 
which  corresponds  with  the  close  of  chapter  65,  the  prophet 
says  that  when  the  Messianic  kingdom  shall  be  set  up  a 
new  order  of  things  will  ensue  similar  to  that  in  Paradise, 
before  sin  came  bringing  disharmony  with  the  Power  gov- 
erning the  world.  The  Midrash  Bereshith  Rabba,z\\.  12,  finds 
this  future  renewing  of  the  world  indicated  in  the  fact 
that  the  word  toltdhoth  (generations,)  occurs  but  twice  in 
the  Bible  with  a  doubled  \  /.  <*.,  in  Gen,  2:4  and  Ruth  4: 18. 


SOLEMN  QUESTIONS.  51 

When  these  two  passages  are  combined,  the  opinion  is 
stated,  reasoning  from  the  numerical  value  of  the  letter 
\va\v  (1=6),  that  the  doubled  1  signifies  the  six  things 
which  were  taken  from  the  first  man,1  and  which  will,  one 
day,  be  restored  through  the  mediation5  of  the  Messiah,  the 
son  of  David,  who  is  descended  from  Perez,  or,  as  is  ex- 
pressed by  another  teacher,  "Although  all  things  were  cre- 
ated perfect,  yet,  since  the  first  man  fell  into  sin,  they 
have  come  into  disorder,  and  they  will  not  be  restored  to 
their  primitive  condition  till  the  Son  of  Perez  appears," 
Among  the  six  things  mentioned  above,  which  were  taken 
from  Adam,  is  his  ^J,  i.e.,  his  glorious  splendor,  his  shining 
exterior,  which  was  the  appearance  of  his  innocence  shin- 
ing forth  from  his  person;  for,  as  is  indicated  in  Judges  5: 
31  and  Job  14:  20,  the  love  of  God  makes  the  countenance 
sunny,  but  God's  anger  takes  away  the  brightness.  All  this 
agrees  with  the  Christian  conception  of  the  work  of  God  in 
Christ.  It  begins  within,  unseen  and  spiritual,  and  its  end 
and  culmination  is  a  new  birth  (na'kivyeveffia)  of  the 
earthly  and  heavenly  world  (Matt.  19:28),  a  restoration 
(jTTOxaTaffTaffts)  of  the  lost  (Acts  3:21),  a  releasing  of  the 
creature  from  the  bondage  of  corruption  (Rom.  8:21),  pre- 
pared and  assured  by  means  of  the  resurrection  and  ascen- 
sion of  Jesus  Christ  to  the  right  hand  of  God. 

Further,  while  the  rationalistic  conception  sees  in  the 
serpent  of  Paradise  only  an  emblem  of  wicked  desire,3  that 
of  the  so-called  mystic  conception  represents  it  as  the  in- 
strument of  Samael,  *'.  ^.,  the  demoniac  power  of  evil  and 
of  death,  and  in  this  sense  it  is  often  said  that  through  the 
counsel  of  the  serpent4  man  brought  death  upon  himself, 
and  that  death,  even  if  not  in  that  special  case,  yet  in  gen- 
eral is  the  result  of  sin.5  Sin  and  death  accordingly  will 
not  cease  till  the  head  of  the  old  serpent6  is  crushed,  and 
that  is  just  what  is  noped  in  the  appearance  of  the  Messiah, 


:»T  "?y  (2       .prs-n  r-s  (l 
.y-n  :*'  (3 

.wn:  TV  voy2  (± 
.Ken  s^  revs  p«  1.5 
ru  (6 


52  SOLEMN   QUESTIONS. 

as  is  paraphrased  by  the  Jerusalem  Targum  (Gen.  3: 15  b); 
"  For  them  (mankind)  there  is  no  salvation,  and  for  thee, 
O  serpent,  there  is  no  salvation;  but  they  (mankind)  will 
one  day  attain  comfort  and  restoration  as  far  as  the  heel1 
in  the  days  of  King  Messiah."  As  the  other  Jerusalem 
Targum  shows,  there  lies  at  the  bottom  of  this  the  thought 
that  the  struggle  going  on  through  history  between  the 
serpent  and  mankind  is  marked  by  a  continual  conquest  and 
yielding,  a  crushing  of  the  head,  /.  e.,  a  victory  of  those  who 
hold  fast  the  law  of  God,  and  a  bruising  of  the  heel,  and 
thus  a  yielding  of  those  who  forsake  God  and  His  law.  But 
the  coming  of  the  Messiah  determines  the  victory,  and 
brings  healing  even  to  the  bruise  upon  the  heel, which  man- 
kind has  suffered  from  the  serpent,  while  the  serpent  him- 
self remains  under  the  curse.  At  all  events  the  Targum 
says  that  the  promise  interwoven  in  the  curse  of  the  ser- 
pent will  find  its  final  fulfillment  through  the  appearance 
of  the  Messiah,  and  that  is  an  agreement  with  Christianity 
which  cannot  be  too  highly  estimated. 

The  ancient  synagogue  also  acknowledges  the  Messiah 
as  the  Mediator  of  an  eternal  redemption.  The  Jerusalem 
Targum,  on  Gen.  49:  18,  designates  the  salvation  upon 
which  the  hope  of  the  dying  patriarch  is  fixed  as  the  finai, 
eternal  salvation,  and  paraphrases  it  in  the  following  lan- 
guage :  "  Our  father  Jacob  said,  My  soul  waiteth  not  for 
the  redemption  of  Gideon,  the  son  of  Joash,  for  that  is  a 
temporal  redemption;  and  not  for  the  redemption  of  Sam- 
eon,  the  son  of  Manoah,  for  that  is  a  redemption  which  will 
come  to  an  end;  but  for  the  redemption  which  Thou  hast 
promised  to  bring  to  Thy  people,  the  children  of  Israel, 
through  Thy  Word/ — for  this  redemption  my  soul  waiteth." 
And  there  is  added,  "  For  Thy  redemption  is  an  eternal 
redemption."  3  In  another  reading  the  passage  signifies, 
"  No,  but  for  the  redemption  of  the  Messiah,  of  the  son  of 
David,  who  one  day  will  redeem  the  children  of  Israel  and 


SOLEMN   QUESTIONS.  53 

bring  them  back  from  exile, — for  this  redemption  waiteth 
my  soul."  According  to  one  of  these  readings  God  accom- 
plishes this  enduring  redemption  through  His  Word,1  who 
is  the  means  of  His  revelation  in  the  world  and  in  history; 
and  according  to  the  other  it  is  through  the  Messiah,  the 
son  of  David;  that  is,  if  we  combine  the  two  readings  of 
the  personal  human  mediator  of  His  revelation,  in  whom 
involuntaril)-this  thought  forces  itself  upon  us — His  Word* 
as  it  were,  became  flesh.  We  are  very  far  from  wishing  to 
attribute  to  Jewish  declarations  New  Testament  thoughts 
in  their  apostolic  sharpness  and  depth  of  meaning,  but  our 
interes't  in  the  difference  between  the  two  is  exceeded  by 
our  interest  in  their  relative  agreement.  In  the  statement 
of  ancient  Jewish  doctrine  one  may  have  as  his  object  to 
show  how  different  its  representatives  are  from  Christian 
ideas,  even  when  they  apparently  agree.  But  it  is  much 
more  the  object  of  the  one  who  states  Christian  doctrine, 
especially  of  one  who  would  like  to  win  Jews  to  Christian- 
ity, to  show  that  the  ancient  Jewish  theology  (that  is,  that 
theology  which  was  not  yet  influenced  by  a  tendency  in 
opposition  to  Christianity,)  contains  as  an  addition  to  the 
Word  of  God  in  the  Old  Testament  germs  of  thought,which 
attain  their  development  and  their  perfection  in  Christian- 
ity, or  forms  of  thought  which  Christianity  has  filled  with 
a  new  and  advanced  contents  given  by  revelation.  Even 
Ferdinand  Weber,  in  his  System  of  the  Theology  of  the 
Ancient  Synagogue,  translated  by  George  Schnedermann 
and  myself  (1880),  has,  in  a  one-sided  manner,  laid  too  much 
stress  on  the  differences.  He  says,  for  example,  that  the 
theology  of  the  ancient  synagogue  never  connected  the 
Messiah  and  the  essential  Word  of  God3  at  the  same  time 
referring  to  Isa.  9:  6  and  7,  where,  as  a  seal  of  the  prophecy 
of  the  birth  of  the  Messiah,  it  is  stated,  ''The  zeal  of  the 
Lord  of  hosts  will  perform  this."  This  is  rendered  by  the 
Targum,  "Through  the  Word4  of  the  Lord  of  hosts  will 

1)  la  the  New  Testament  through  Hie  AoyoS. 

.K-iavu  (2 

.KID'O  (3 


54  SOLEMN   QUESTIONS. 

this  be  performed."  But  with  a  justice  equal  to  that  with 
which  Weber  refers  to  the  difference  between  Jewish  and 
Christian  conceptions,  and  no  less  scientifically,  we  here 
affirm  the  resemblance  of  the  one  to  the  other.  For  as  the 
Jewish  theology,  in  addition  to  the  Old  Testament  witness- 
es (e.g.,  Psa.  33:6;  107:20),  views  the  Word  as  the  medium 
of  power  in  the  creation  and  government  of  the  world,  so 
does  the  Targum  on  Isa.  9:7  designate  the  coming  of  the 
Messiah  into  the  world  as  the  work  of  God  through  His 
Word,  or  what  is  the  same  thing,  His  Logos. 

"  The  Word  (oAoyos)  was  made  flesh,"  says  John  (1:14), 
and  then  continues,  "and  dwelt  among  us,  .  .  .'full  of 
gracae  and  truth."  Without  any  doubt  the  apostle  here 
means  that  in  Jesus  the  Messiah,  the  divine  Shechinah  ap- 
peared in  human  form.  For  the  ancient  Jewish  theology 
called  the  Shechinah1  the  dwelling  of  God,  the  presence, 
and  especially  the  gracious  presence  of  God  among  men, 
God  Himself,  as  in  His  holiness,  coming  and  dwelling  here 
below  with  His  own;  as  is  said  (Abothj:j),  "When  two  sit 
together  and  discourse  over  the  words  of  the  law,  there  is 
the  Shechinah  present  with  them."  And  the  ancient  Jew- 
ish theology  also  affirms,  as  the  end  of  human  history,  that 
God  will  again  make  His  abode  with  men.  "  The  Shechi- 
nah,." says  an  old  Midrash  ( Tanchuma,  129  b,  Vienna  edition), 
"dwelt  originally  here  below,  but  after  Adam's  fall  He 
withdrew  farther  and  farther  into  heaven,  and  with  Abra- 
ham began  His  gradual  return."  And  another  Midrash 
(Pirke  de  Rabbi  Eliezer,  ch.  14),  says  that  the  Holy  Scripture 
speaks  of  ten  descents*  of  God  upon  the  earth,  of  which  the 
tenth  is  to  be  expected  at  the  last  time.  Does  not  this 
closely  approach  the  thought  that  the  appearance  of  the 
Messiah  will  be  the  deepest  descent  of  God  into  human 
history?  The  Messianic  names,  "Immanuel,"  and  the  "Lord 
our  Righteousness,"  confirm  this.  Only  the  name,  "Mighty 
God  "3  (Isa.  9:6),  which  cannot,  except  with  violence,  be 
explained  away, — thatonly  passes  the  Jewish  comprehension. 

.nrsiy  (1 

J-IIYT  (2 

\        .113:  "?«  (3 


SOLEMN  QUESTIONS.  55 

We  now  put  together  a  few  witnesses  in  regard  to  the 
Messiah  from  the  ancient  synagogue,  which  agree  with  the 
Christian  testimony,  except  that  Christianity  regards 
what  was  said  ot  the  Messiah  as  fulfilled  in  Jesus. 

r.  As  Paul  says  of  Christ  (Col.  i:  16),  that  God  created 
all  things  through  Him  and  for  Him,  so  likewise  in  Be  re- 
shith  rabba,  ch.  2,  Resh  Lachish  says  of  the  Spirit  which 
brooded  over  the  waters  of  chaos,  "  This  was  the  Spirit  of 
King  Messiah." ' 

2.  As  Paul  (Gal.  6:2,)  speaks  of  a  law  of  Christ,  and 
therefore    of  a  Messianic    law,  whose  commandments   are 
summed  up  in  the  commandment  of  love,  born  of  faith,  so 
likewise  we  read  in  Jalkut  on  Isa.,  §  296,  that  the  Holy  One 
— Blessed  be  He! — intends  through  the  Messiah  to  give  a 
new  law.1 

3.  As  in  Matt.  8: 17,  the  confession  of  the  53d   chapter 
of  Isaiah,  "  Surely  he  hath  borne  our  griefs  and  carried  our 
sorrows,"  is  mentioned  as  fulfilled  in  Jesus;  so  likewise  in 
the  Babylonian  Talmud  ( Sanhedrin  98 b, )  reference  is  made 
to  the  Messiah  as  taking  human  sorrows  upon  Himself  in 
that  He   is   considered  as  a  sutferer,  like  Job  and  Rabbi 
Judah  the  Holy. 

4.  As  Peter,   in  his  first  Epistle  (i:  19  ff),  calls  Christ 
the  Lamb  of  God  "  fore-ordained  before  the  foundation  of 
the  world,"  so  likewise   is  it  said    (Pesachim  54  a]  that  the 
name  of  the  Messiah  was  already  made  (came  into   exist- 
ence,) before  the  world  was  made;  and  in  Pesikta  Rabbathi 
(Friedman's  edition,  p.  161,)  it  is  said  that    He    has    taken 
vicarious   suffering  upon  Himself    since   the   six  days  of 
creation.3 

5.  John  says  in  his  first  Epistle  (2:  i  ff),  "We  have  an 
Advocate  with  the  Father,  Jesus  Christ  the  righteous;  and 
He  is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins,  and  not  for  ours  only, 
but  also  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world."     And  in  Jalkut 
on  Isaiah,  §  359,  the  Messiah  promises  to  complete  the  work 
of  redemption  destined  to  Him  from  the  beginning,  when 

.xrr^o  toStn  xnn  m  (i 
..-'i-n  mm  (2 
(3 


56  SOLEMN    QUESTIONS. 

He  says:  "O  Lord  of  the  world,  with  inward  exulting  joy 
I  take  it  upon  myself  on  condition  that  no  one  of  Israel 
shall  be  lost,  and  that  not  alone  those  who' live  in  my 
days  shall  have  salvation,  but  also  those  who  lie  in  the  dust 
of  the  grave;  and  that  not  alone  those  who  die  in  my  days 
.shall  have  salvation,  but  also  those  dead  who  have  died 
from  the  days  of  the  first  Adam  till  now,  and  that  not 
these  only,  but  also  that  those  dead-born  in  my  days  shall 
have  salvation;  and  not  the  dead-born  alone,  but  also  all 
those  whom  Thou  hast  in  mind  to  call  into  being,  and  those 
not  yet  come  into  being.  I  will  enter  immediately  into  the 
agreement  and  will  take  it  immediately  upon  myself." 

6.  In  the  first  Epistle  of  Peter  (3:  18  ff),  it  is  affirmed 
that  Christ,  ''being  put  to  death  in  the  flesh, but  quickened 
by  the  Spirit,"  went  in  the  Spirit  "and  preached  unto  the 
spirits  in  prison;"  and  similar  to  this  is  what  is  affirmed  in 
Jalkut  on  Isaiah,  §  296,  that  the  son  of  David  will  pray  for 
the  dwellers  in  the  underworld,  and  that  the  wicked  who 
say  Amen  to  this  prayer  will  by  this  one   Amen   be  saved 
from  hell. 

7.  The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  shows  that  Christ,  as 
the  antitype  of  Melchizedek,  is  far   above  Abraham  (7:4), 
higher  than  Moses  (3:3),  higher  than  the  angels  (1:4),  and 
exactly  after  this  manner  is  Isa  52: 13,  explained  in  Jalkut, 
§  238:  "  King  Messiah  will  be  higher  than  Abraham,  and 
lifted  up  above  Moses,  and  will  stand  far  higher  than  the 
ministering  angels. 

8.  In  Hebrews  i:  13  the  question  is  asked,  "  To  which 
of  the  angels  said  he  at  any  time,  Sit  on  my  right  hand?" 
And  in  Jalkut  on  the  Psalms,  §  869,  we  find    among  many 
mistaken   interpretations,   the    New   Testament    thought: 
"  One  day  the  Holy  One — Blessed   be    He — will  call  King 
Messiah  to  sit  at  His  right   hand."     So   also  Rabbi  Akiba 
understands  the  noth  Psalm  (Chagiga  14  i),  though  Rabbi 
Joseph  the  Galilean,  objects  to  this  and  finds  in  the  throne 
of  the  Messiah  at  the   right  hand  of  God  a  profanation  of 
the  Shechinah. 

9.  To  the  question  of  the  high  priest  (Mark  14:  61,  62), 
"Art  thou  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  Blessed?"  Jesus  said, 


SOLEMN     QUESTIONS.  57 

"  I  am;  and  ye  shall  see  the  Son  of  man  sitting  on  the  right 
hand  of  power,  and  coming  in  the  clouds  of  heaven."  Also 
the  Talmud  (Sanhedrin  98  a)  presupposes  the  Messianic 
reference  of  Daniel  7:13:  He  it  is  who  shall  appear  in  the 
clouds  of  heaven,  or  riding  upon  an  ass;  and  the  Targum 
on  i  Chron.  34,  remarks  upon  the  name  Anani,1  "  That  is 
the  King  Messiah,  who  shall  one  day  be  revealed." 

10.  And  as  Jesus  declares  (John  5:  25), '-Verily,  verily, 
I  say  unto  you,  the  hour  is  coming,  and  now  is,  when  the 
dead  shall  hear  the  voice  of  the  Son  of  God;  and  they  that 
hear  shall  live."  So  likewise,  according  to  Sanhedrin  98  b, 
the  Messiah  is  called  JW-  and  that  too — as  this  symbolic 
name  is  explained  in  Pirke  de  Eliezer,  ch.  32,  and  elsewhere, 
— as  He  who  makes  those  who  sleep  in  the  dust  of  the 
grave  to  germinate,  that  is,  who  awakens  them  to  new  life. 
-  "But,''  some  one  will  perhaps  object,  "to  put  together 
these  passages  gives  a  false  impression,  for  they  are  wit- 
nesses from  different  times  and  different  books."  As  though 
we  did  not  know  that!  But  they  all  belong  to  the  Talmudic 
period,  or  at  least  to  the  Talmudic  literature;3  and  they  all 
belong  to  the  time  after  Christ,  which,  far  from  weakening 
the  force  of  this  testimony,  only  strengthens  it  in  a  manner 
astonishing  and  even  startling.  The  second  possible  objec- 
tion is  that  "  what  is  there  said  is  not  the  confession  of  the 
whole  synagogue,  but  of  single  individuals."  But  these  indi- 
viduals are  men  whose  authority  is  of  the  greatest  weight, 
like  Resh  Lachish  and  Rabbi  Akiba,  and  when  the  same 
declarations  are  found  in  the  Targum  they  appear  as  in  a 
certain  measure  accepted  by  the  consciousness  of  the  peo- 
ple, or  at  least  there  is  a  decided  tendency  towards  such  an 
acceptance.  And  in  the  third  place  one  may  endeavor  to 
resist  the  impression  of  these  evidences  by  bringing  up 
these  points  in  which  they  differ  from  the  Christian  state- 
ments. But  what  we  wish  to  show  remains  unmoved,  and 
is  not  weakened  by  any  of  these  objections.  For  in  any 
case  this  shows  that  the  fundamental  ideas  of  Christianity 

Cloud  man.     133^  (_! 
a)  Jinnon,  Psa.  72:  17.  ^ 

3)  We  have  intentionally  omitted  references  to  the  Svhar  Literature. 


5&  SOLEMN  QUESTIONS. 

have  their  roots  in  Judaism,  in  ancient  Judaism,  and  not  in 
that  Judaism  which  later  let  go  its  hold  of  the  prophetic 
Word;  and  they  likewise  show  that  Christianity  does  not  by 
any  means  force  upon  Judaism  new  and  foreign  ideas  which 
it  might  not  thoroughly  assimilate  if  it  only  would.  The 
fundamental  question  is,  and  ever  remains  the  question, 
"  Is  Jesus  the  Messiah,  or  shall  we  expect  another  ?  " 

Let  us  look,  for  example,  for  a  moment  at  the  Targum 
on  Isa.  52: 13;  53.  It  begins  (52:  13),  "  Behold,  my  servant, 
the  Messiah,  shall  do  wondrous  things."  This  personal 
conception  of  the  Servant  of  the  Lord  is  not  retained  in 
the  course  of  the  translation;  the  collective  idea  of  Israel 
enduring  judgment  gains  finally  the  upper  hand  and  the 
representation  becomes  gradually  secular  and  warlike.  But 
for  our  purpose  it  will  suffice  to  refer  to  ch.  53:4,  5,  where 
the  Targum  translates,  "  He  [the  Messiah,]  will  make  in- 
tercession for  our  sins,  and  for  His  sake  our  misdeeds  will 
be  forgiven,  while  we  thought  Him  scourged,  smitten  of 
the  Lord,  and  loaded  with  afflictions,  and  He  will  build  the 
temple  which  was  profaned  by  our  sins,  which  was  dis- 
honored by  our  misdeeds,  and  by  His  teaching  will  great 
peace  come  to  us,  and  if  we  hear  His  words  our  sins  will 
be  forgiven."  The  translation  contains  unjustifiable  alter- 
ations, but  in  spite  of  them  the  thought  remains,  which  is 
indeed  the  fundamental  thought  of  Christianity,  that 
through  the  merits,  through  the  word,  through  the  inter- 
cession of  the  Messiah  forgiveness  of  sins  will  be  wrought. 
If  then,  the  Jew  recognizes  in  Jesus  the  Messiah,  it  is  only 
the  Messianic  hopes  of  the  ancient  synagogue  which  he 
sees  realized  in  Him.  In  accordance  with  these  he  may 
confess:  "  He  has  sacrificed  Himself  for  us,  He  has  pro- 
claimed to  us  the  way  of  salvation,  and  He  appears  before 
God  as  a  high  priest  in  our  behalf." 

There  remains  now  but  one  more  important  point  in 
which  the  Jewish  Messianic  idea  and  the  Christian  con- 
ception of  Christ  agree,  one  indeed  little  considered,  and 
yet  very  significant,  and  which  cannot  be  gainsaid. 


• 
THE  Messianic  hope,  as  it  is  voiced  in  the  Jewish  liter- 


SOLEMN  QUESTIONS.  59 

ature  before  and  after  Christ,  exhibits  different  forms.  It 
is  now  more  earthly,  national  and  warlike;  now  more  mys- 
tical, universal,  and  ethico-religious.  But  there  is  one  fun* 
damental  trait  common  to  all  the  Messianic  conceptions; 
that  is,  the  son  of  David,  who  does  not  transfer  His  do- 
minion to  a  bodily  successor.  He  is  not  a  king,  like  the 
kings  of  this  earth,  in  whose  stead  at  death  there  succeeds 
a  son  as  heir  to  the  throne.  He  exists  in  no  marriage  re~ 
lation  from  which  spring  bodily  children.  Furthermore, 
there  is  a  singlar  representation  according  to  which  the 
one  Messiah  is  made  into  two;  a  Messiah  the  son  of  Jo- 
seph, who  was  against  the  world-power,  and  a  Messiah  the 
son  of  David,  who  accomplished  the  victory  over  the 
world-power.  Now  these  both  are  childless,  they  have  no 
sons  in  whom  their  life  and  work  are  continued.  The  Mes- 
siah, the'son  of  David,  is  not  the  founder  of  a  dynasty.  He 
is  the  sole  occupant  of  the  throne,  without  a  change.  He 
reigns  eternally.  If,  however,  a  limited  continuance  be  as- 
cribed to  the  dominion  of  the  Messiah,  then  there  must  be 
intended  a  period  of  time  passing  over  into  eternity.  For 
the  days  of  the  Messiah1  belong  to  the  future  world;2  they 
form  the  transition  from  the  temporal  form  of  the  present 
to  the  eternal  form  of  the  hereafter. 

Marriage  is  a  divinely  ordered  institution.  Without  it 
the  human  race  cannot  be  perpetuated,  that  is,  in  families. 
Therefore,  especially  according  to  the  Jewish  idea,  mar- 
riage is  the  duty  of  a  man.  But  to  think  of  the  Messiah  in 
the  married  state  does  not  simply  contradict  a  cabalistic 
exaggeration.3  The  Messiah  is  unmarried,  as  imagined 
and  represented  in  Jewish  literature  both  before  and  after 
Christ.  And  this  is  scriptural.  For  as  the  prophetic  word 
speaks  of  the  ancestors  (fathers)  of  the  Messiah,  but  not 
of  a  bodily  father,  only  of  his  bodily  mother  (Isa.  7:  14,  Mi- 
cah  5:  2,  Jer.  31:  32,  cf.  Isa.  49:  i),  so  also  it  never  speaks  of 
a  spouse  of  the  King  Messiah.  Whenever  there  is  a  refer- 


cVyn  (2      .rviyfcn  fro1  (1 

3)  Shabbathai  Zebi  married  Sara,  the  beautiful  Pole,  who  threw  herself  upon  his 
neck  as  the  destined  wife  of  the  Messiah,  but  the  glory  of  the  false  Messiah  was  by  no 
means  enhanced  thereby. 


60  SOLEMN    QUESTIONS. 

ence  to  a  relation  between  the  Messiah  and  a  wife,  this 
wife  is  the  church,  the  antitype  of  the  Shulamite;  and 
whenever  there  is  a  reference  to  the  children  of  the  Mes- 
siah, it  is  his  people  who  are  meant,  whose  Eternal  Fath- 
er1 He  is,  the  holy  seed  of  those  redeemed  by  Him.  Isa.  6: 
13:  53: io-  In  the  passage,  Psa.  45:  16  (Hebrew  Bible  v.  17), 
"  Instead  of  thy  fathers  shall  be  thy  children,"  the  Targum, 
interpreting  the  psalm  Messianically,renders  -K^pHS  133  (thy 
children,  the  righteous).  For  marriage,  although  a  divine 
institution,  is,  nevertheless,  only  an  earthly  and  temporal 
relation,  while  the  Messiah  is  a  personality  lifted  far  above 
earthly  conditions.  His  feet  rest  on  the  earth,  but  His 
head  towers  above  the  heavens. 

Just  for  this  reason  is  the  government  and  kingdom 
of  the  Messiah  always  designated  by  the  prophets  as  eter- 
nal. The  Messiah  himself  is  an  eternal  king,  without  a 
successor.  Isa.  9:  7,  Ezek.  37:  25.  And  it  is  simply  impossi- 
ble that  the  Messiah  should  be  meant  by  that  prince  in 
Ezek.  ch.  40-48,  who  leaves  princely  dignity  and  domain  to 
his  children.  The  Targum  deliberately  translates  SMfJ2 
in  this  concluding  vision  of  Ezekiel  by  X3"),3  but  where  the 
Messiah  is  foretold  by  a  prophet  as  the  second  David  (Ezek. 
34:  24;  37:  25),  it  renders  the  same  word  XD^tt.4  It  is  a  much 
more  self-consistent  thought  which  the  people  expressed 
when  they  failed  to  understand  Jesus'  prophecy  of  His  ap- 
proaching death:  "We  have  heard  out  of  the  law  that 
Christ  abideth  forever."  And  so  also  we  read  in  the  proc- 
lamation of  the  birth  of  Jesus  (Luke  1:32,  33):  "The  Lord 
God  shall  give  unto  him  the  throne  of  his  father  David; 
and  he  shall  reign  over  the  house  of  Jacob  forever,  and  of 
his  kingdom  there  shall  be  no  end." 

Judaism  and  Christianity  therefore  agree  in  this,  that 
the  Messiah  is  a  personality,  absolute  and  eternal,  lifted  far 
above  earthly  family  life  and  far  above  every  earthly  lim- 

.1JP3K  (1 

2)  The  Prince. 

3)  Great  One. 

4)  King. 


SOLEMN   QUESTION?.  6l 

itation.  And  in  this  all  that  bear  the  name  of  Christian 
are  as  one.  To  be  sure,  there  is  just  now  in  vogue  in  the 
Christian  world  a  theology  which  affords  to  Judaism  weap- 
ons both  offensive  and  defensive  against  the  doctrine  of 
the  church  and  against  the  historical  character  of  our  re- 
ligious documents;  but  we  may,  nevertheless,  comfort  our- 
selves in  the  midst  of  all  this  confusion,  sure  that  this  as- 
sistance will  not  suffice  for  the  justification  of  Judaism. 
For  in  Christianity  one  may  occupy  the  Unitarian,  the  trin- 
itarian,  the  rationalistic,  or  the  supernatural  stand-point? 
but  it  always  will  remain  that  Christianity  is  the  religion 
of  completed  ethics,  and  that  Jesus  is  the  great,  holy,  and 
divine  Man,  whose  appearance  on  earth  divides  the  history 
of  the  world.  And  we  ma}'  regard  the  mystery  of  the 
atonement  as  we  will,  it  will,  nevertheless,  always  remain 
that  the  blood  of  this  Jesus,  who  is  the  antitype  of  Abel, 
the  slain  innocent,  speaketh  better  things  than  that  of 
Abel,  since  it  asks  not  vengeance,  but  favor,  for  the  guilty. 
There  has  recently  appeared  a  publication  bearing  the 
title,  "  Undogmatic  Christianity."  In  this  the  question  is 
raised  in  reference  to  the  gospel  critics,  how  anything 
which  is  the  subject  and  product  of  scientific  inquiry  can  be 
the  foundation  of  an  assured  religious  faith.  The  answer  is, 
that  this  consideration  disappears  if  we  withdraw  into  the 
innermost  depths  of  the  holy  character  of  Christ,  "  who  is 
far  above  all  the  fluctuations  of  theology  and  historical 
science,  just  as  a  lofty  mountain  peak  lifts  itself  above  the 
clouds.  For  has  it  ever  been  doubted  that  He  was  uncon- 
ditionally obedient  to  His  heavenly  Father,  He  who,  lov- 
ing His  brethren  with  an  undying  love,  was  faithful  even 
unto  death,  He  who,  never  moved  by  temptation  and  never 
embittered  by  ingratitude,  was  incomparable  in  the  fear- 
less truthfulness  of  His  soul,  and  in  His  gentle  meekness, 
He  who  was  led  patient  as  a  lamb  to  the  slaughter  praying 
for  His  murderers?  Therefore  from  the  time  of  His  so- 
journ upon  earth  to  the  present  day,  He  has  won  mankind, 
has  conquered  their  most  stubborn  resistance,  and  has  led 
them  in  countless  numbers  to  God.  This  character,  won- 
drous in  its  simplicity,  influences  us  all,  whether  condemn- 


62  SOI. KM X 

ing-  or  inspiring  us.  He  accompanies  us  in  all  relations  of 
life,  and  in  all  conditions  of  feeling,  as  the  pole-star  the 
nightly  wanderer.  No  one  into  whose  consciousness  He 
once  has  come  is  free  as  before.  The  Christ  who  accom- 
plishes this  down  to  the  present  day,  and  to  all  eternity, 
we  must  call  the  historic  Christ,  for  he  calls  forth  again 
and  again  the  mightiest  historical  forces." 

This  is  true,  but  the  historic  forces  go  yet  deeper.  He 
is  surely  the  living  ideal  of  noble  humanity  which  has  ris- 
en upon  men  and  has  poured  His  light  and  warmth  upon 
them.  But  He  is  more  than  that;  He  is  the  Christ,  the  goal 
of  the  words  and  ways  of  God  in  the  Old  Testament.  He 
is  the  Mediator  between  God  and  man,  between  Israelite 
and  Gentile,  between  heaven  and  earth,  and  between  time 
and  eternity.  Having  passed  through  death  into  glory, 
He  has  laid  the  foundation  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  the 
completion  of  which  is  assured  because  thus  laid.  When 
once  Israel  shall  greet  him  with  a  better  Hosanna  than  the 
first,1  then,  and  not'  till  then,  will  the  consummation  of  this 
divine  kingdom  draw  near. 

"God  hath  concluded  them  all  in  unbelief,"  says  the 
apostle  in  reference  to  Israel,  "  that  He  might  have  mercy 
upon  all."  Rom.  11:32.  Brethren  of  the  house  of  Israel! 
at  last  now  break  through  the  ban  of  unbelief,  ere  mercy 
shall  have  run  her  course. 

i)  Matt.  23:  39. 


CORRIGENDA. 


PAGE. 

8, 

lines     21     and 

22,     for 

fasiaation 

read 

fascination. 

15, 

foot-note  1, 

(« 

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M 

DDR.  " 

16, 

"       2, 

u 

CPKTJ3 

(t 

B^nis. 

18, 

"        1, 

a 

p4m 

M 

irns  twice. 

39, 

lines    19    and 

20     " 

Psa.  139 

II 

Psa.  130. 

51, 

foot-note  5, 

u 

Ron 

u 

SS- 

53, 

"        4, 

tl 

s--:>o3 

K 

KT3-03. 

55, 

"        1, 

M 

win 

U 

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55, 

"        3, 

H 

rrtwna 

H 

n^«i3. 

56, 

line         25, 

it 

§238 

U 

§338. 

56, 

"            34, 

U 

in 

H 

11-  a. 

'EDUTH    LE    ISRAEL," 

. 
(Witness  to  Israel,) 


A  Hebrew  monthly  devoted   to   the  furtherance   of  mo.al 
and  religious  life  amongst  the  Jcics. 


EDITOR, 

-M.    LOEWEN,- 


Kampiana    Street    3.         Lemberg,     Gallzicr. 

THE  PECULIAR  PEOPLE, 
j        )         '  v    j  } 

^L  CHRISTIAN  MONTHLY, 

DEVOTED     TO     JEWISH     INTERESTS. 


THE  REV.   WILLIAM  C.   DAL  AND, 

LEONARDSVILLE,  N.  Y. 


EDITOR, 


Published  by  the  American  Sabbath  Tract  Society,  Alfred  Centre,  -Yew  York. 


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